Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 2, 1993                   TAG: 9305020004
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HUNTINGTON, W.VA.                                LENGTH: Medium

COAL TALKS NEAR DEADLINE

Job security, rather than wages, is the main issue in talks aimed at getting a contract between 60,000 union members and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association.

The union is pressing for experiments in worker participation, favored by the Clinton administration, as a way to increase productivity and save jobs.

The mine operators are seeking changes in work rules that would increase efficiency. In addition, they have expressed concern over the rising cost of health coverage.

However, since both sides agreed not to comment to the media about the talks, details have been unavailable.

There has not been an industrywide walkout since 1981, but there have been selected walkouts against individual companies, including one earlier this year.

The UMW contract was extended for 60 days on March 3 when the union ended a monthlong strike against subsidiaries of the nation's largest coal operator, Peabody Holding Co. The strike involved more than 7,000 miners in five states.

The union has held a series of demonstrations in recent days to press their theme that "no agreement is in sight."

The chairman of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association, Peabody President George S. "Sam" Shiflett, has offered a different message.

"All the ingredients for an agreement are on the table right now," Shiflett said recently. "It's up to us, the coal operators and the [union], to start packaging this."

Both sides have acknowledged that the unionized coal industry is in trouble. Coal prices are lower now than a decade ago; coal contracts are won or lost on margins of pennies a ton.

Only about 28 percent of the nation's coal is mined under the contract; most of it is high-sulfur coal that will become less and less saleable as the federal Clean Air Act of 1990 takes effect.

Underground miners earn an average wage of $14.25 an hour.

With contract talks focused on job security rather than raising wages significantly, UMW President Richard Trumka thinks the situation is ripe for trying worker participation strategies favored by U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

Trumka told Wall Street investors recently that such strategies have been successful at U.S. Steel Mining Co. in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Productivity increased by 50 percent in one year at U.S. Steel's Maple Creek mine after the union and the company implemented a Reich-style worker empowerment program, Trumka said.

Mine workers there are involved in how the mine is operated. They check out new, expensive equipment and suggest ways it can be modified. Since workers agreed to the elimination of mandatory overtime, 128 were recalled from layoffs. The mine's bottom line improved, too; it showed a $7.2 million profit in 1992, after losing $10 million in 1991.

Separate talks stressing employee participation have been under way since October between the union and the Independent Bituminous Coal Bargaining Alliance - U.S. Steel Mining and three other coal companies not in the BCOA.