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HAZLETON, Pennsylvania -After four months the strike of 59 miners against Jeddo Coal Co. here continues with no negotiations and no apparent movement toward negotiations.
Since the strike by members of United Mine Workers of America Locals 803 and 1531 began on March 26, the bosses have not tried to mine any coal from the anthracite strip mine, but they are still hauling coal that was mined before the walkout.
"We're not letting down," striker Jim De told the Militant. He described how strikers have prevented some trucks from hauling coal by "just walking alongside them and explaining the situation. We didn't raise our voices or anything - and they drove out the other side with their trucks still empty."
The miners, who have been without a contract for four years, are fighting the company's attempt to impose its "final offer." This includes paying wages that are about $2.50 per hour lower than at other unionized mines in the region and gutting seniority rights and other union work rules.
Jeddo has proposed filling in large portions of the huge strip mine with solid waste trucked in from New York. The strikers have helped to mobilize opposition to this scheme, which has stopped it so far.
Striker Richard Patskan, whose father was killed in an underground mine accident, said he thought labor should fight for health care for all. "Everybody is facing the same thing, from layoffs to wage cuts," commented striker Wayne Pesotine. "Labor has to stick together."
New Zealand coal miners strike Solid Energy
HUNTLY, New Zealand - Rejecting fresh concession demands
from their employer, Solid Energy, workers at the Huntly East
coal mine walked off the job August 6 and threw up a round-the-
clock picket line at the mine entrance. "We're sick of the claw-
backs; it's time to draw a line in the sand," Gary Allan, a
maintenance fitter at the site, told Militant reporters who
visited the picket August 8.
Sixty miners and 28 maintenance workers, all members of the Engineers Union, work at the underground facility. Allan explained that in June 1997 the company threatened to close the mine. In a close vote the union then agreed to a contract containing stiff concessions. The work week was increased from 36 to 42.5 hours, and penalty rates for overtime work were abolished.
Solid Energy also succeeded in forcing separate contracts on workers at neighboring mines who had previously been covered by the same agreement. A number of the Huntly East strikers said that this had weakened the unity of all mine workers in the region.
"We thought we lost everything last year," said Allan, "but this year they seem to have found some more." The company's central demand in the new round of contract negotiations is for an end to "trades recognition." This would allow maintenance workers to do work previously done by miners, and vice-versa. The union sees this as a way to slash the workforce. "They want one guy to do two jobs," Allan commented.
At a meeting August 10, the strikers voted 85-to-1 to continue their strike.
Solid Energy is owned by the New Zealand government. It is currently up for sale as a part of the government's ongoing policy to privatize state-owned assets.
Lee Oleson, a member of the United Transportation Union, and Nell Wheeler in Newark, New Jersey; and Terry Coggan, a member of the Engineers Union in Auckland, New Zealand, contributed to this column.