Just to add a little point from my own memory, Arnold Miller undoubtedly
had black lung disease, but I don't think I ever, ever saw him without a
cigarette between his lips too.
http://themilitant.com/2015/7931/793157.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 31 September 7, 2015
How coal miners’ struggles
transformed union
The following selection is from the pamphlet Coal Miners on Strike,
containing articles from the Militant on battles waged by the United
Mine Workers from 1977 to 1981. This excerpt is from an English-language
broadcast on the Cuban station Radio Havana, aired March 27, 1981, on
the first day of a nationwide miners strike. Copyright © 1981 by
Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
The Black Lung Association, which rank-and-file miners formed in January
1969 to sponsor and push for the West Virginia law, soon became an
advocate for the interests of working and retired miners within a union
whose leaders had sold out to the companies.
The strike also inspired Joseph “Jock” Yablonski to challenge Tony Boyle
for the union’s presidency. Running on the slogan “Boyle’s in bed with
the coal operators,” Yablonski ran a strong campaign and vowed to
continue the fight beyond the December elections. He was assassinated by
Boyle-hired gunmen on the last of the year, but at his funeral, Miners
for Democracy was formed.
In June 1970, a third rank-and-file organization was born out of another
strike in southern West Virginia, the Disabled Miners and Widows of
Southern West Virginia.
These three groups united to back the Miners for Democracy slate at a
West Virginia convention in May 1972. In December UMW members elected
nine rank-and-file miners [from the MFD slate] to the international
office for the first time in the union’s history. …
Boyle was ousted by MFD candidate Arnold Miller, a victim of black lung
and a former miner, an electrician with twenty-four years on the job. A
new regime set in.
In 1974, miners voted to ratify their contract for the first time in the
union’s eighty-four-year history. A small group of handpicked
negotiators could no longer sell out the interests of thousands of
miners in smoke-filled rooms, hundreds of miles from the coalfields.
Coal miners continued to demonstrate their militancy during the summers
of 1975, ’76, and ’77. Local disputes which began in southern West
Virginia in 1975 and 1976 flared up into coalfield-wide strikes both
years, because miners were so dissatisfied with the way the operators
were refusing to deal with grievances at the mines. Instead of
discussing disputes, the companies tried to force miners back to work
with federal injunctions, fines, arrests, and threatened firings.
In 1975, 80,000 miners struck. In 1976, 120,000 did — nearly every union
miner east of the Mississippi. The 1976 strike was so effective that
federal judges in Charleston withdrew their fines and injunctions, an
event almost unique in modern labor history.
Then in 1977, miners struck again in protest over cutbacks in their
medical benefits, so important in a dangerous industry centered in
southern Appalachia, where hospitals refuse to admit patients without
cash on the spot to pay for emergency care.
Then in 1978, the UMW strike emerged as the central class question in
the United States. The coal miners were fighting for the very existence
of their union and every other union in the nation.
Related articles:
Steelworkers fight bosses’ demands for concessions
Solidarity actions set when contracts expire Sept. 1
Mineworkers protest Patriot’s attack on union
Nonunion construction deaths on rise in New York
On the Picket Line
Don Rasmussen: Stalwart of miners’ fight for safety
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