Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 25, 1993 TAG: 9301250038
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARTHA BRYSON HODEL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HUNTINGTON, W.VA. LENGTH: Medium
COAL TALKS SHROUDED IN MYSTERY
Last year's model of labor-management cooperation in the coal industry may turn to confrontation this year.The United Mine Workers union and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association joined forces last year to win congressional passage of a law guaranteeing health benefits for more than 200,000 union retirees.
Both sides agreed that passage of the bill, about the only labor-backed proposal approved by former President Bush, removed a major obstacle to a new collective bargaining agreement.
But with the industry's labor contract due to expire a week from today, there is little sign that last year's collaboration has extended to this year's negotiations.
"What happens on Feb. 1?" teases a new sticker that's been appearing on union miners' hard hats. "We know . . . do you?"
The current contract covers 60,000 miners working in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
In addition, more than 150,000 retired miners' benefits and pensions are affected.
In the past, the agreement also has set the standard for most of the rest of the industry.
Both sides have been unusually successful in enforcing a "no comment" policy on the status and content of the talks.
"This is the most quiet period of negotiations I've ever heard in my life," said Marc Cohen, a coal industry analyst who works for Kidder, Peabody & Co. in New York.
"Nobody knows a damned thing."
Spokesmen for the union and the operators have broken their silence only once, two months into the talks, to deny a newspaper report that negotiations had broken off and a strike was imminent.
But before negotiations got under way, both sides were liberally hinting about what they wanted.
Chief industry negotiator B.R. Brown told reporters at the start of talks on Nov. 6 that the industry "is not in good health."
Coal prices are depressed to levels below those of 10 years ago, while stockpiles "are at unacceptably high levels," Brown said.
Only 28 percent of the nation's bituminous coal is mined under the contract, and 80 percent of the mines covered by it are more than 20 years old.
"They are reaching the end of their productive life," said Brown, who is chairman, president and chief executive officer of CONSOL Inc., the nation's second largest coal producer.
Besides improving efficiency, the companies likely want active miners to pay a portion of their health care premiums.
The current agreement is virtually alone in American industry requiring employers to pay 100 percent of the cost of employees' insurance.
For its part, the union is alarmed by the growth of what it calls "double-breasting," the practice of unionized companies establishing nonunion subsidiaries that operate side-by-side, and often in direct competition, with unionized operations.