Last month the National Labor Relations Board in the Ohio region dismissed the last remaining charge Murray had filed against the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) over panel rights. A panel is a seniority hiring list and can be company-wide in union contracts.

The NLRB concluded that "the panel rights and their application are nondiscriminatory and not violative" of the National Labor Relations Act. The ruling will give miners who formerly worked at three North American coal mines rights to jobs at the Powhatan mine.

The most recent ruling issued by the NLRB office in Pennsylvania is a formal complaint against Murray for threatening and vilifying Maple Creek miners' representatives, UMWA members, and its officers. The NLRB action was in response to an unfair labor practice charge leveled against Murray in August by the UMWA.

The NLRB took action against Murray and D. Lynn Shanks, company president of Maple Creek mine. Among the complaints filed were: Disregarding the union and its officers, threatening union employees with reprisals for publicizing the labor dispute at Maple Creek, threatening employees with loss of jobs and loss of wages and benefits if they failed to select new union officers and because of their support of the union, soliciting employees to replace their current union officers, telling its employees that their support for the union was futile, threatening the union president with unspecified reprisals, and disparaging its employees for participating in union activities.

"By the conduct described above," the NLRB complaint stated, Murray and his associates have "been interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed" by labor law.

Carlo Tarley, secretary-treasurer of the UMWA, welcomed the NLRB's latest decision. "Murray and Shanks have been actively trashing and smearing the UMWA, and we're pleased the NLRB has now demanded that they stop," he said. "Threats and insinuations are absolutely not constructive to the process of resolving disputes."

The NLRB has scheduled a hearing on the complaint for January 17 in Pittsburgh.

Larry Quinn is a member of United Mine Workers of America Local 1248 at the Maple Creek mine.  
 
 
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