Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 12, 1993 TAG: 9309120180
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLESTON LENGTH: Medium
Reich announced Friday that William Usery, 68, has agreed to help resolve the dispute. Usery served as secretary of labor under President Ford and also helped resolve the United Mine Workers' 1989 dispute with The Pittston Co.
The Pittston strike was 6 months old when President Bush's labor secretary, Elizabeth Dole, selected Usery to be what she called a "supermediator" in the dispute.
Four months later, the striking miners went back to work with a new contract. Federal officials hope he can be as effective in the current UMW strike against member companies of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association.
Usery did not immediately return telephone calls to his Washington, D.C., office Saturday.
When the Pittston workers returned to the mines in February 1989, he said that part of that success came in persuading both sides to set aside their emotions and to listen to each other.
Usery's career began as a union welder in his native Georgia. He rose to a position with the Georgia chapter of the International Association of Machinists.
The Kennedy administration appointed Usery to a commission of labor and management officials. The group was trying to settle strikes that were hobbling construction of what would become the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
By 1969, his reputation brought him to the attention of President Nixon's labor secretary, George Schultz. Even though Usery had worked for Nixon's 1968 Democratic opponent, Hubert Humphrey, Nixon appointed him to be Schultz' assistant secretary for labor-management relations.
Not long afterward, Usery helped settle a nationwide postal strike. Nixon was impressed enough to make him director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in 1972, making Usery the highest-ranking Democrat in the Nixon administration.
He helped settle the 1974 NFL players' strike.
After serving as President Ford's labor secretary, Usery set up a Washington, D.C.-based labor-management consulting firm. He also continued to accept mediation assignments to increasingly intractable labor disputes.
Usery helped settle a three-week Chicago teacher's walkout in 1983 and a six-month strike against Moline, Ill.-based Deere & Co. in 1987.
The challenge now facing the Hardwick, Ga., native is settling a strike over job security that the United Mine Workers union say has idled about 17,000 coal miners in seven states, including Virginia.
On Saturday, the coal operators group filed unfair labor practices charges against two past members of the group.
The complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board office in Baltimore alleges Freeman United Coal Co. and the coal-mining affiliates of the American Electric Power Corp. violated labor laws by making a separate peace with the UMW.
The NLRB has already filed a complaint leveling similar allegations against Amax Coal Co.
B.R. Brown, the association's top negotiator, said the union's "attempt to fracture" the association "will prove to be unlawful, as well as unsuccessful."
"These unlawful actions clearly have prolonged the strike and have caused financial and other harm to BCOA members," he said Saturday.
UMW spokesman Jim Grossfeld and American Electric Power spokeswoman B.J. Smith declined comment Saturday, saying they had not seen the complaints. There was no answer at Freeman United Coal's offices in Marion, Ill.
American Electric Power is based in Columbus, Ohio.
by CNB