Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 18, 1993 TAG: 9302180135
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HUNTINGTON, W.VA. LENGTH: Medium
SIDES TRADE BLAME IN COAL TALKS BREAKDOWN
The United Mine Workers and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association accused each other Wednesday of rejecting offers to extend their expired contract and end a 2 1/2-week-old strike so negotiations can resume.B.R. Brown, chief negotiator for the coal association and president of CONSOL Inc., blamed the UMW for the failure to reach an extension Tuesday night. Peabody Coal Co. President George Shiflett said the union rejected a written extension proposal.
"The extension effort failed not because BCOA was unwilling to discuss the needs of its members' UMWA-represented employees but because the international union appeared to be more interested in their own institutional security," Brown said.
But UMW President Richard Trumka said Brown retracted the offer after Trumka agreed to it during a face-to-face meeting in Bal Harbour, Fla., where UMW officials are attending a labor conference.
"They proposed it, we accepted it, they rejected it," Trumka said. He called Brown's statement a sign of "bad faith or a state of confusion" among the coal operators.
Neither side said how long the extension would have lasted.
About 7,500 union miners in West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana began a selective strike against Peabody Coal and Eastern Associated Coal Corp., subsidiaries of the nation's largest coal producer, Peabody Holding Co., when the UMW contract with the coal association expired Feb. 1.
Miners are working without a contract at other companies represented by the coal association, which represents 12 of the nation's largest coal companies. The association's pact also sets the standard for 300 other companies who signed the 1988 contract under "me too" agreements after it was negotiated.
The UMW and the coal association began contract negotiations Nov. 6, but discussions apparently never got past the initial stages. Since the contract expired, negotiations have focused on a contract extension that would let talks resume.