Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 17, 1994 TAG: 9407080012
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CASTLEWOOD LENGTH: Medium
``I don't think anyone expects a repeat of what happened in 1989,'' UMW spokesman Tom Johnson said Thursday.
The current contract, which involves about 1,200 UMW members in Virginia and West Virginia, will expire June 30.
UMW vice president Cecil Roberts met with local officers Thursday to review the provisions, which will be made public after union members get copies of the proposal today.
The union has said it wants job security and job opportunities.
``I believe the members will be pretty pleased with what they see in this contract,'' Donny Lowe, president of the UMW district in Castlewood, said. ``There are gains in the contract from what we had.''
Results of the ratification vote will be known Monday night, Lowe said.
After the previous contract expired, two years passed before the ratification vote. ``This time, we already have something to vote on,'' Lowe said. ``No one wants a strike.''
The 1989 strike against Pittston focused on health care for retirees and job security. It drew international labor support and attention because it involved, for the first time in a coal strike, the widespread use of massive sit-down demonstrations and the takeover of a processing plant to slow coal operations.
More than 46,000 miners in 10 states walked off their jobs for a week or longer to show their support for Pittston strikers. They drove in slow-moving caravans to impede coal trucks and congregated at a rundown campground dubbed ``Hillbilly Woodstock.''
The union is awaiting a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on whether it must pay $52 million in fines for violence and civil disobedience during the Pittston strike.
The contract that ended the 1989 strike promised laid-off union miners four out of every five jobs at Pittston's mines.
Since then, union officials have become concerned about the company's purchase of nonunion mines.
Pittston said in April it lost more than $100 million in the first three months of this year. The company is involved in a court battle with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association over the legislative bailout of the UMW health care fund.
by CNB