
          The Pittston Strike
          By Thompson, Charlie D.Charlie D. Thompson
          Vol. 11, No. 6, 1989, pp. 1, 3-6
          
          AFTER CROSSING THE Clinch River and heading into the extreme
southwestern corner of Virginia, the terrain begins to close in around
you. The rolling farmland to the east gives way to steep mountains
with valleys barely wide enough to fit both a road and a house
side-by-side. It is the Clinch River which also informally marks the
boundary to that separate region known as "the
coalfields." It is here that the black veins of coal,
intertwined with the backbones of these ridges, are thick enough to
extract. Since 1892, coal companies and the mountain people they hire
have bitterly collaborated in this task.
          The bloody history of Appalachian mining is central to
understanding this region. Isolated behind the physical barrier of the
mountains from the rest of the world and even from the states which
claim jurisdiction here, the people of the coalfields have continually
struggled for economic survival with little recognition from the rest
of the country. Outside ownership of the region's resources drains
away much of the region's wealth, causing unemployment, disability,
and poverty which perpetually exceed national averages.
          YET IN THE coalfields, as in many oppressed areas of the world, the
human spirit blossoms. Appalachian people throughout coal-mining
history have contributed much to the labor movement's struggle for
justice. Coal miners and their union, the United Mine Workers of
America, have perhaps the most coura-

geous and hard-fought story of
organizing in our history, as the films Harlan County, USA and Matewan
have depicted. Now another chapter of this story is unfolding.
          The UMWA is fighting again for basic human rights against powers
which attempt to discredit and even destroy it. Since April 4,
seventeen hundred miners employed by the Pittston Company of
Greenwich, Conn., have been on a "selective
strike." The remaining UMWA members throughout the region
work to support them with 2 percent wage deductions.  "The strike
is not about economics," said Bill Patton, a sixty-two-year-old
miner and former Dickenson County Supervisor. "It is about social
justice." Wages are not an issue in this strike--miners are
satisfied with their average salary of $15 per hour. The major
concerns at the picket shacks and in miners' homes are health_care and
job security. The company has proposed measures which weaken pensions
and decrease health_care benefits for fifteen hundred retirees, widows
of pensioners, and disabled miners. Pittston also wants to relinquish
the company's responsibility for lifetime care for retirees and their
spouses.
          The strike, though necessary for maintaining all that thc union has
worked for, was reluctantly called. After fourteen months of attempted
negotiations, during which the UMWA ignored its own policy and worked
without a contract, the union walked out.
          Osborne Debert, a thirty-two-year-old miner from Lebanon, Va.,
states simply the reason: "They want to take a whole lot from us
that we have already fought for." In one of the world's most
dangerous occupations, miners virtually count on adverse effects from
their occupations. Black Lung or other mining ailments will attack
almost all miners at some stage in their lives. Previously, they had
some consolation in knowing they and their families were to be cared
for when the trouble came. Now without a contract, the Pittston
miners, both active and retired, are again at the mercy of a resistant
absentee owner when their work takes its toll.
          The Pittston Company wants other major changes in long-standing
labor rights including the repeal of the right to an eight-hour
day. In other words, mandatory overtime would be a requirement. If
Pittston gets its way, miners would be required to work seven days a
week if thc company chooses. In Appalachia, where church and family
ties are still very strong, this is particularly onerous. Still more
examples of new "flexibility" proposed by Pittston include allowing
for increased numbers of non- union workers in Pittston mines and
subcontracting to other non-union companies (which are in some cases
subsidiaries of Pittston, for work which is now done by union
members.
          Clearly the union had reason enough to head to the picket
lines. With a resistant company refusing to bend on what it knows to
be the undoing of standard labor practices, the strike was
inevitable. Pittston surely knew this would occur--the contractual
violations against the union challenge the most basic of rights. The
company's tactics seem to have a larger and more significant
agenda. This challenge to the UMWA appears to many rank and file
members to be a litmus test for not only the miners' solidarity but
for all of American labor. Bill Patton said, "They're trying to
break the 

union's back and if we lose on this one we've lost
everything." The U.S. labor movement is indeed at a critical point
in its history and this strike will demonstrate much about how unions
will fare through the next decade.
          The UMWA has shouldered this responsibility with impressive
commitment and inspiration with a pledge to strike until their rights
are reinstated. Sentiments like the following are expressed daily on
the picket line: "We'll be here as long as it takes" and "It
ain't over till we say it's over." Some like Elizabeth Cook,
beautician, strike support worker and miner's wife, promise to give
all to help the cause. "I have to be honest with you," she
said, "I'd die for this union. I ask the Lord to help me be like
Job in the Bible and endure to the end." An overwhelming majority
of the miners are steadfast with only one union member crossing the
picket line during the entire strike.
          Though spirits are high, no one dares believe the fight is almost
over. Entire communities, pulling together for the long haul, are
finding renewed closeness, a stronger sense of purpose, and new
political awareness. Support from groups around this country and
abroad adds significance. Elizabeth Cook, tired but determined, said,
"This strike has been hard but it has been good for us."
          In November the town of Grundy, Va., elected local union president
Jackie Stump to the House of Representatives by write-in ballot. The
man he beat is the father of a circuit court judge responsible for
numerous fines against the union. Even with only two weeks of
campaigning, Stump won by a two-to-one margin against a legislator
thought by some to be the most powerful in the state.
          At Bill and Jan Patton's home the police scanner blares out the
latest police check of the picket lines. Every union home now has this
tap into the activities of the Virginia 

State Police and Vance
Security guards who keep constant surveillance on the union. "We
used to respect the law here," Bill Patton admitted, "but never
again will the troopers get any support from any of the people in this
community." A large sign outside the M and R Store just a few
miles away reads, "We respectfully refuse to serve State Troopers
during the period of the UMWA strike." Everywhere in the Virginia
coalfields people have been shocked to find the state so blatantly
supporting the company through the use of escorts for non-union coal
trucks and thousands of striker arrests for small or nonexistent
offenses. The union has been fined $32 million for practicing civil
disobedience tactics like sitting in the road to block coal trucks.
          On a bedside table in the Pattons' home is Taylor Branch's Partinq
the Waters. All union leaders have been asked to read this account of
the civil_rights movement to learn more about the use of non-violent
strategies. Minds are being broadened. Not a single union member has
been arrested for violent offenses during this strike. Meanwhile,
Pittston continues to guard its property with automatic weapons. At
one mine a makeshift "pill-box" atop an equipment shed protects
security guards. Scenes like this are ominous reminders of the
presence of the hired outsiders some are again calling the
"gun-thugs."
          In a small cove near Clinch River is a union campground known as
"Camp Solidarity." A community resident donated the property to
provide lodging for the union's support-

ers during the strike. A gravel
road leading to this refuge winds through the hills for miles. Here
the mountaineers mingle with union members and supporters from as far
away as Poland, Czechoslavakia, England, and even the Soviet Union, as
well as many thousands from around the United_States.
          There is no official record of visitor numbers, but this small
haven has provided up to sixteen hundred a place to eat and sleep in a
single day. Liz Cook describes the operation of the union's daily food
service: "Pittston tried to shut us down by getting the kitchen
here closed. But the Lord provided a way out and we started fixing
food in our homes and bringing it in. I fixed forty pounds of macaroni
salad in my kitchen in one day." Union members who normally
construct the wooden mine supports used their carpentry skills to
build a permanent bunk house at the Camp just in time for winter.
          Five miles from Camp Solidarity is the Moss #3 Coal Preparation
Plant. For four days in September it was occupied in protest by
ninety-nine miners and a clergyman. Nearly five thousand people stood
outside blocking the gates. The picket shack is calm now, but the
occupation is still referred to as an example of the power of unarmed
people to physically overtake and control property and economics
without force. High on the metal structure behind the gates new
aluminum paint covers the bold words written during the takeover:
"UMWA is here to stay." Now, like the painted-over words, the
occupation is not easily visible, but the results linger in the hearts
of the miners. One man whose daily job is to inhabit the small picket
shack outside Moss #3 said confidently, "I ain't a bit afraid of
them. We control things here."
          The Reverend Joe Johnson, an eighty-year-old former miner and
active Freewill Baptist minister, sits quietly in his home with his
wife listening to the latest on the police scanner. He remembers the
days before the union, "I worked in water up to my knees for a
dollar a day loading coal by hand, and if I said anything about it the
boss would tell me, 'If you don't like it, there's a barefoot man
waiting outside ready to take your job.' That's what Pittston wants to
get it back to."
          "I think Christian people ought to be the ones working (in the
union) to get benefits for their people," counseled Johnson,
"The Bible says as you do it
unto your neighbor, you do it unto God. Church people should work to
help those in distress." The State Police that travel the road
past the Reverend's house are not allowed to stop at his driveway and
the nearby Maple Grove Church is a site where miners congregate but no
troopers are allowed to turn around. Another church chained its
parking lot entrance when it learned the state police were using the
site. "We should love our neighbor and do unto them what we'd have
them do to us," said Johnson, "If we all bind together we can
win this thing and I do believe that God's will for us is to have a
decent living."
          The Pittston strike continues as the weather gets colder. Snow has
already fallen on the picket lines. The UMWA in a recent flyer said,
"The campfires are blazing and the soup's on at Camp Solidarity for
the supporters who continue to stream in from around the nation and
the world." The strike seems firmly established in the hearts of
the people of the deep mountain communities surrounding the Pittston
land.
          Results, however, are slow coming. Although Secretary of Labor
Elizabeth Dole has visited the area, no federal action has been
initiated as of this writing. To date, the State of Virginia has done
little but aid Pittston's continued operations. Pittston itself seems
firmly entrenched in its position. The company claims it can last for
another year or longer without a settlement.
          Hidden behind these mountains is a pivotal struggle for justice and
democracy by Americans. Yet many citizens of this country still know
very little about our own current labor issues. In contrast, Lech
Walesa was recently given the Medal of Freedom by George Bush, and the
Polish Solidarity Union is known by every American with a
television. In October, a Solidarnosc official, Jack Merkel, came to
the coalfields without media fanfare and spoke to miners on the
strike. He said, "This is the first time in the history of our
movement that the workers of Poland have been able to support a labor
union in the United_States." Before demands of the UMWA are met,
they will probably need much more of the same.
          Crossing the Clinch River is indeed like crossing a foreign
border. This land of rich resources and hidden turmoil is tucked away
from the mainstream. News coverage largely ignores its existence. Yet
a strike of international dimensions is underway. Those who know this
continue to come. Those who have always been here pledge to remain as
solid as the mountains which surround them. They are not about to give
in now.
        
