Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: SUNDAY, June 13, 1993 TAG: 9306150372 SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D-3 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: RICHARD L. TRUMKA DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But there's a problem. Your employer is closing your work place and opening another site where the same work is going to be done. The profits your increased productivity generated are being used to create more jobs, but those jobs are being offered to new hires, not to you.
It may sound crazy, but that's exactly what's happening to members of the United Mine Workers of America.
The coal supply in mines where thousands of UMW members work is being exhausted. That supply is being depleted even more quickly because of increased productivity on the part of the union miners. Many of these mines will close in the next 10 years, and the UMW members who work in them will be fired. And while new mines are opening, those jobs are going to other workers.
While differences in equipment and geography affect productivity, it is clear that in both surface and underground mines, UMW members mine coal more efficiently than other workers. At Ashland Coal Co., for example, UMW members mined 6.25 tons of coal per hour in surface mines vs. 4.64 tons per hour mined by nonunion workers in 1992. In Ashland's underground mines, our members' productivity was 6.06 tons per hour in underground mines as opposed to 3.82 tons for nonunion miners.
Still, our higher productivity is being used as a weapon against us - the more efficiently we work, the faster we end up on the unemployment line. It is this issue of job security that has provoked strikes at selected sites by the UMW.
We called strikes at mines owned by Ziegler Coal Holding Co., Arch Mineral Corp. and AMAX Inc. in Illinois and Indiana only after months of stalled negotiations and a 60-day contract extension with the member companies of the Bituminous Coal Operators' Association.
The union had no choice but to fight for good jobs for the future. We are simply asking that when the coal operators use the profits created by our work and increased productivity to open new mines, our members get a fair share of those new jobs.
We thought our 1988 negotiations with the BCOA companies had settled this issue, but the coal companies have not honored their agreement with the UMW to offer union miners three out of every five new jobs they create; the UMW was to fill those positions from its seniority list of laid-off miners.
Only two weeks after the agreement was signed, BCOA member companies began to renege on their obligation in a variety of ways, and the 60 percent threshold has never been met.
The BCOA companies have engaged in "double-breasting" - creating nonunion subsidiaries, front companies - to deny union members jobs that should rightfully be ours. This is a shell game intended to hide the true ownership of new mines and to circumvent their obligation to UMW members.
In current negotiations, the BCOA is demanding that only 36 percent of new jobs go to UMW members selected by the companies - irrespective of our seniority system and the needs of laid-off workers. Moreover, the BCOA wants to further diminish the number of union jobs through subcontracting work now being done by UMW members.
Rather than spending their energy and resources working with us to help our industry grow and compete in a global economy, the coal companies have been engaged in finding dishonest ways to avoid honoring their contract and denying UMW members jobs that are rightfully theirs.
At the UMW, we believe those are jobs we have earned - jobs that are essential to our families, our communities, to a strong and competitive coal industry, and to America's economic well-being.
In this new, more competitive world, we believe it is critical to the survival of our industry that we have enlightened labor-management relations based on mutual respect and an understanding that only by working together can we all win.
The UMW has done its part. We've learned a lot in the past 10 years. We have demonstrated our willingness to change, to help the industry become more productive and profitable.
Now it's time for the operators to move out of the dark ages of adversarial labor-management relations. Now it's time for the coal companies to understand that only when the coal operators and the miners prosper will our industry be positioned to become even more productive and profitable in the next century.
The UMW is willing to help the industry become even more productive - if the coal companies are willing to work with us, to respect and listen to our members, to recognize our contribution to the industry's growth and good health, and to reward our hard work with continued jobs for the future.
But until the coal operators come to their senses, we have no choice but to be firm in our resolve and use every legal means at our command to win justice for our members, their families and communities.
The action taken recently is the first in a phased expansion that will continue until the BCOA-represented companies agree to provide our members with what they have earned - jobs with a future.
Richard L. Trumka is president of the United Mine Workers of America.
by CNB