Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 9, 1995 TAG: 9507100004
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CASEY COMBS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, W.VA. LENGTH: Medium
``If they can get out of it, they will,'' said Christine Sforza, a Charleston accountant and former Illinois coal miner.
Gender bias is one topic at the two-day 17th National Conference of Women Miners last month in Charleston.
Seminars and speakers will also discuss equal pay, retirement benefits, mine safety, child care, sexual harassment and domestic violence.
Sforza is conference co-chairwoman and an advisory committee member for the Coal Employment Project of Tazewell, Va., which sponsored the conference.
Women began taking mine jobs in the mid-1970s, Sforza said. The organization was founded in 1977 to help them find jobs and fight discrimination.
Also that year, Sforza was the first woman hired as a miner at the Monterey Coal Co. in Albers, Ill. She was laid off in 1991.
About 4 percent of the 110,000 coal miners in the United States were women in 1992, the most recent available data, said Leslie Coleman, a statistician with the National Mining Association in Washington, D.C. In 1986, just 2 percent of 155,000 miners were women.
Most mine managers are men, and many are reluctant to hire women, Sforza said.
``I think a lot of it has to do with ingrained ideas that women aren't as strong as men and can't handle the work,'' she said.
Lauretta Burdette of Turtle Creek said her mine, Hobet No. 21 near Madison, Boone County, recently hired an uncertified male miner with seven months experience over a certified female miner with 15 years experience.
The Coal Employment Project campaigned for the woman at Hobet with no luck.
``They hire some guy who doesn't have any experience, doesn't have the certification, and they say he's better,'' Sforza said. ``It makes you want to choke somebody.''
The woman eventually took a lesser job at a Tennessee mine making half the Hobet wage, said Burdette, who also is a member of the organization's advisory committee.
``I know there's a lot of guys out of work, but ... I just don't see how they can justify that,'' Burdette said.
Hobet spokeswoman Ruth Sullivan refused to discuss personnel matters, citing federal law and company policy, but she said Hobet stands by its equal employment opportunity policy.
``We have an excellent female group,'' she said. ``We will continue to seek female applicants based on qualifications and experience.''
Hobet has not hired a female miner since July 1987, Sullivan said, but she said that was about the time the company stopped expanding.
``Mostly what we have done since then is maintain our numbers, and we do not have many people who leave,'' she said.
Burdette said she was the first woman hired when she took her job in 1981.
Sullivan said each of the company's mines employs six women among 200 surface miners. Hobet's No. 7 mine is near Logan.
``I am a manager, which is not real common (for a woman) in the coal industry,'' Sullivan said. ``And I can personally say that this is a wonderful company that works hard for all of its employees.''
Hobet managers strictly enforce a policy against sexual harassment, Burdette said, but some mining companies allow it to continue even if a written policy exists.
The conference brought together about 100 male and female mining industry workers from at least 11 states and England, Canada and Belgium, Sforza said.
Speakers include Cecil Roberts, vice president of the United Mine Workers of America, and Elaine Harris, West Virginia representative of the Communications Workers of America.
The conference was held in St. Louis last year.
by CNB