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

DATE: TUESDAY, October 5, 1993                   TAG: 9310050094
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PIKEVILLE, KY.                                LENGTH: Short

MINERS WHO REFUSED JOB REINSTATED

Edward Phillips Jr. has learned that if you can't stand the heat, you should at least be able to ask for relief without fear of losing your job.

"We didn't even know that we had a right," Phillips said. He was one of two Lee County coal miners fired June 17 for refusing to operate their loaders in sweltering heat. The loaders are not air-conditioned.

Phillips, 51, and Benjamin Holder, 35, were reinstated with back pay as part of an agreement reached with Locust Grove Inc. The company also was required to post a notice telling other workers that they cannot be fired for complaining about unsafe working conditions.

"This is a case where the federal mine-safety law worked exactly as it was supposed to," said Tony Oppegard, director of the Lexington-based Mine Safety Project and the men's attorney. "The miners asserted their rights and ended up being temporarily reinstated, then permanently reinstated, and essentially made whole."

Phillips and Holder said they had complained for several months about the lack of air conditioning in their machines. Holder said he took a thermometer to Locust's No. 4 strip mine one day, and that it burst at 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

by CNB