The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 69/No. 15           April 18, 2005  
 
 
Miners build New Mexico conference on working women
(front page)
 
BY KATHERINE BENNETT
AND TERI MOSS
 
PRICE, Utah—“Most of us think that we are going to have a full house,” said Rosie Kellywood about the Changing Woman Conference to be held April 18 at the Civic Center in Farmington, New Mexico.

Kellywood is a member of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), which initiated the conference and is cosponsoring it with the University of New Mexico School of Law. “At first we were tailoring this for women miners,” Kellywood said, “but I think that a lot of other women workers and women in the community will attend.”

According to IUOE officers, this is the first conference of its type and they have accommodations for 100 attendees. Kellywood said that the response at work the first week of April, however, is exceeding organizers’ expectations. “We expect about 50 coal miners just from the BHP mines here—both women and men—to attend,” she said. “We may need additional space.”

Kellywood is a heavy equipment operator who has worked at the BHP San Juan surface mine for 13 years. She runs track dozers, motor graders, and 170-ton haul trucks. She said it took a fight on her part to get a coal mining job. “It has been hard for women here to get hired in the mines,” she told the Militant. “The companies think that this not the kind of work women can do. And there are some male co-workers who also believe women shouldn’t work here. I always thought of myself as a victim, but I got tired of this.”

Kellywood said the conference is being publicized throughout the Navajo Nation in the Navajo Times, and in local Farmington papers and on a local radio station.

A delegation from Utah’s coalfields is coming, she said, which includes several Co-Op miners who have been involved in an 18-month-long battle against C.W. Mining for representation by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). A few women miners from Price, Utah, are inviting other area women to attend who are fighting to get into the mines but have not yet succeeded, Kellywood said.

Wars Peterman, president of IUOE Local 953, said representatives of the Indian Health Service, the Navajo Tribal Council, and UMWA locals on the Navajo Nation will take part. “The issues facing women coal miners are also faced by workers in other places,” he said. “There are several women from a local factory that makes parts for missiles who will be attending.”

The sessions at the conference will include the following topics: discrimination in the workplace, filing an EEOC claim, sexual harassment, and mental health in employment. To register for the conference, mail a check for $10 payable to Changing Woman Conference and send it to Operating Engineers Local 953, U.S. Highway 64, Kirtland, NM 87417. Include your name, address, phone number, and occupation. For more information, call (505) 598-0418.  
 
 
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