The Militant (logo) 
   Vol.64/No.21            May 29, 2000 
 
 
Coal miners rally to defend health benefits
UMWA mobilizes 8,000 miners, retirees in Washington
{lead article}
 
BY MARY MARTIN  
WASHINGTON--In the largest national demonstration of coal miners in many years, thousands of working and retired miners, family members, students, and other supporters rallied on the steps of the U.S. Capitol May 17. They demanded the government continue to fund cradle-to-grave health care for retired miners and their dependents. These benefits are now under severe attack by the coal bosses.

Organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), the action here came on the heels of a series of meetings last fall in coal mining areas to defend the Coal Act. The struggle to defend the miners' health care legislation was the centerpiece of the recent UMWA convention, and health care and pensions have also been central issues in strikes by coal miners over the last two decades. Last fall, more than 40,000 people in coal mining areas signed petitions to save the Coal Act.

More than 100 union-organized buses rolled in here from West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and some 1,500 participants came from Alabama. The crowd of 8,000 included miners and their supporters from Alabama, Colorado, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Many retired miners came to the protest in wheelchairs. Others leaned on canes. The contingent of union members from Southern Illinois identified themselves with name tags as the "Illinois UMWA Express." Some wore camouflage, which was commonly worn by miners during the 1989-90 Pittston coal strike.

Miners carried thousands of signs prepared by the union that said, "Keep the Promise! Save the Coal Act." Many carried homemade signs demanding the preservation of health care benefits. Other signs read "UMWA Freedom Fighters" and "Remember Pittston."

The UMWA Health and Retirement Fund was won in 1946 following a nationwide miners' strike. Through their mass mobilization the government agreed to back up the demand for lifetime health care for UMWA members. The commitment was codified in subsequent contracts between the UMWA and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA). Over the past 25 years the coal bosses have been on an offensive to sharply cut back miners' health care. This was a central issue in the UMWA strikes in 1977-78 and 1989.

Today some 70,000 are covered under the retirees' health plan. Many are widows of retired miners. In recent years, many coal bosses have filed court suits attempting to end their responsibility to provide lifetime health coverage. Several recent court decisions have severely undermined the Coal Act. For example, a federal district court in Pennsylvania recently ruled that the Berwind Corporation of Philadelphia, which had been paying $295,000 in monthly premiums to more than 1,200 UMWA retirees, was now responsible for paying only five miners.

Bo Dodd is a retired miner from Eldridge, Alabama, who worked underground for 22 years. "We were promised health care from cradle to the grave," he said. "Well I'm not dead yet!" His friend Clint Tittle, remarked on the Coal Act, "Harry Truman signed it." Dodd replied, "But he didn't want to!"

The UMWA's main demand is that Congress pass the Coal Accountability and Retired Employee Act for the 21st Century or CARE 21. If passed the bill would immediately transfer $172 million in Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund interest money to the UMWA's Combined Benefit Fund (CBF).

Another bill backed by the union, recently introduced into Congress, is the Coalminers and Widows Health Protection Act of 2000. The legislation would provide tens of thousands of retired miners or their widows health-care coverage for another decade.  
 
'Affects every worker in the country'
Many working miners expressed their determination to back the fight to preserve medical coverage for retirees. Dennis Moore, a miner at Big Sky Coal in Coal Strip, Montana, explained, "If we lose the Coal Act, which we won't, it will affect the medical care of every working man and woman in the country."

"People have to be willing to take a stand and say we aren't going to be pushed around anymore," said Alabama miner Joe Craig Weldon. "We want the coal bosses and the government to live up to their promises to us. People fought and died for union wages and benefits," he emphasized.

Derrick Webster, another Alabama miner, added, "I am here to support my Dad even though I don't know the rest of these people from Adam. It upsets me that these older miners have no place else to go [for medical care]. I am here in D.C. to get these people what they need."

Among the rally participants were many widows of coal miners who depend on the medical benefits provided to them under the Coal Act.

V. Doss, from Brilliant, Alabama, explained her husband worked in the mines for 26 years. First, said Doss, her husband was disabled with a crushed hip in a mining accident, and later died from black lung. Adding insult to injury, the mine operator refused to send in his Social Security paperwork. So she never got her husband's miners' pension. Doss said that maintaining these benefits is essential to her continuing to be able to live, echoing a common sentiment by many at the rally.

The Birmingham News carried an article the day of the protest that began: "Tensions in Alabama's coalfields rose even higher Tuesday, as miners at one big mine walked off the job to join retired miners at a health-care rally in Washington, D.C."

Reporting that 1,200 miners, retirees, and family members "left the state in a bus caravan," the paper said the "exodus will idle at least one Alabama operation--U.S. Steel Mining's Oak Grove mine--for three days beginning Tuesday." Citing a company official who was "concerned about the timing of this," the News complained that the miners "refused to apologize for leaving their mines even though the operators can little afford the lost production."

"Health care for retirees and spouses is the most important issue to this union," said Rex Tanner, local president of the Oak Grove mine. "We tried to explain that to U.S. Steel."  
 
Young people join rally
Several busloads of high school age youth whose family members work in the mines were among the rally participants.

The largest group of youth was from Castlewood, Virginia. Another couple of buses brought youth from Carmichael, Pennsylvania. Two buses came from Hart High in Lincoln, West Virginia. A student from Logan, West Virginia, said, "All our families are coal miners, my dad got laid off, my grandpa got killed in a coal mine."

Robby Beddow, also from Logan, said, "Everyone should have health care. We have two hospitals now, but they are shutting one down." Beddow said three busloads of students came from his high school.

Speakers at the rally, chaired by UMWA president Cecil Roberts, included UMWA vice president Jerry Jones, former UMWA president Richard Trumka--now secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO--and several Democratic and Republican politicians from coal-producing states. These included Senators Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine from Ohio, Charles Robb from Virginia, and Robert Byrd from West Virginia..

UMWA president Roberts read a letter to the crowd from a miner's widow whose health and age prevented her from attending the rally, but who asked to be counted as present. When Roberts moved to "count her as present," the crowd cheered in agreement.

Participants in the action included members of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union, the Seafarers International Union, the United Steelworkers of America, the United Transportation Union and the Laborers' International Union.

Mary Martin is a member of the International Association of Machinists.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home