January - February - United Mine Workers of America

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Roberts wins Debs Award
President Roberts in October received
the Eugene V. Debs Award,
named for the legendary leader of
the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Firemen and the American Railway
Union, who co-founded the Industrial
Workers of the World and as a
candidate for U.S. president pulled in
3.5 percent of the vote while sitting
in a jail cell.
With nearly 300 union supporters
on hand, Roberts used the
occasion to urge strong support for
then-candidate Barack Obama to
counter the reactionary policies of
the wealthy. “For eight years, the very
rich and very powerful have had a
party,” he said. “We watched 3 million
jobs shipped out of this country
to communist China and to Mexico
and all around the world. The White
House pushed deregulation, and coal
miners got killed in coal mines in
record numbers. Two million more
people entered poverty, but they
partied on.”
Logistec Pact Signed
The UMWA Nov. 7 reached an agreement with Logistec
Stevedoring, ending a nearly two-month lockout of
workers at a coal-handling facility in Sydney, N.S., harbor.
“Our members stayed strong and stuck together,” said
President Roberts. “The support these members received
from sister local unions in District 2 and Western Canada
also boosted morale by showing our Logistec brothers
that they were not alone in their struggle.”
The five-year pact, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2008, features
pay increases, signing bonuses, improved grievance and
arbitration procedures, improved sick-day and vacation
language, recognition of Davis Day as a contractual
holiday, improvements in work schedules, shift premium
increases, training reimbursement for tuition and books
and company-provided tools.
The 18 members of Cape Breton L.U. 2268 had
worked without a contract since the beginning of the year
when Logistec locked them out Sept. 15 after refusing to
budge from inadequate proposals at the bargaining table.
The company then engaged in hardball tactics, including
going to court to secure an injunction against informational
picketing by the workers.
“This bargaining unit included young men for
whom this was their first time in a labor dispute,” International
Auditor/Teller Bobby Burchell noted. “The
company made it tough to negotiate, but thanks to
solidarity, our members showed they would stay united
for a solid contract.”
Farmington Disaster
Nov. 20, 2008, marked the 40th anniversary of the
Farmington Mine Disaster, an explosion at Consol
No. 9 in Mannington, W.Va., which claimed the lives
of 78 miners and helped usher in the 1969 Coal Mine
Safety and Health Act and other mine safety bills.
Nineteen are still entombed in the mine.
“A lot of men died, and these laws are written in
their blood,” said President Roberts at a memorial
service marking the occasion. “We can’t ever allow the
industry to regress when it comes to health and safety
for the men and women who mine our coal.”
Edna Tucker
The UMWA is celebrating the life of Edna Tucker, who
at 101 is the oldest living former staff member of the
union. Originally from Massachusetts, Ms. Tucker joined the
UMWA Washington, D.C., Headquarters staff in February 1950,
providing support services in the Office of the Secretary-
Treasurer for 20 years before retiring in 1970.
“I remember that she went to conventions and operated
bookkeeping machines,” said her son, Dean Fournier, who
lives a mile away from the adult family home in Seattle
where she currently resides. “She moved here in 1998 after
many of her D.C.-area friends had died, as had her New
England siblings. She is the oldest surviving member of her
generation, with one surviving younger sister.”
14 January/February 2009 • United Mine Workers Journal