Archives: News

Source: Times West Virginian

Date: August 30, 2025

FAIRMONT — As the Trump Administration unravels the successes of the labor movement, union organizers hope Sunday’s annual Labor Day Picnic in Mannington reminds people of the sacrifices their ancestors made in the name of creating good working conditions.

“The Mine Wars of the early 1900s, which formed here, these battles were fought right here in West Virginia, and gave a tremendous amount to working folks all across this country,” former State Sen. Mike Caputo said. “They used to make us live in company houses and shop at company stores, and we had to go to the company doctor. And if it wasn’t for the unions fighting all that, we’d still be living like slaves. That’s what they treated coal miners like back in those days.”

The Labor Day Picnic takes place yearly in Mannington, and is nominally about celebrating unions and the victories workers won against exploitation from business interests. Since the inauguration, President Trump stripped hundreds of thousands of federal workers of their collective bargaining rights, fired the general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board, land left the body unable to hear labor disputes, and has left two important spots on the board vacant. The NLRB exists to ensure companies follow the laws that protect workers in the 1935 Labor Relations Act.

Last week, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the NLRB’s current structure was unconstitutional. The current structure prevents the board’s five members and administrative judges from being removed at will by the president. A law currently shields those members from at will removal. The majority of the court’s judges were picked by Republican presidents, with Trump appointing three justices in 2018.

As the landscape with regards to labor rights changes, Caputo said, people need to realize how important unions are, because without anyone to fight the political power of large business interests, things will go backward.

“That’s evident if you look back in labor history, it wasn’t about safety, it was all about profits and production,” Caputo said. “They even let little kids go into a coal mine. And the union, fortunately, throughout the years, was able to put a stop to all that. Sometimes you don’t know what you have to till you lose it.”

Erin Bates, communications director for the United Mine Workers of America, said the federal government needs to take into more consideration how its treating the everyday American worker. Billionaires do nothing to help take care of the average American and people need to be able to lean on each other, Bates said.

Events like the Labor Day Picnic take the focus off of billionaires and place it back onto workers.

“Strength comes from masses, and so being able to get together for an event like Labor Day, and showing there’s strength in numbers and recognizing that there’s a lot more middle class, lower middle class American workers than there are billionaires,” Bates said. “I think being able to have a day where labor comes together and celebrates what we as normal Americans are doing for this country is a huge deal. And they need to recognize, there’s power in numbers.”

Bates added the notion of representation and having a voice at the workplace be unconstitutional is ridiculous.

Mark Dorsey, president of AFL-CIO in Marion County and one of the organizers of the picnic, said workers built the country. He said a lot of gains workers fought for a hundred years ago were called unrealistic by large businesses, such as the eight hour work day, health care and safety measures. Dorsey said jobs shouldn’t kill the people who work them.

“They said the bosses would never give in, but our collective power made it happen, our solidarity giving us the strength to fight for the better life workers deserve,” he said.

The picnic begins at 1 p.m. at Hough Park in Mannington.

Written By: Esteban Fernandez

Source: Eyewitness News

Date: Sept. 2, 2025

BOONE COUNTY, W.Va. (WCHS) — Cecil Roberts has served as the UMWA president for decades and he knows how important labor unions across the country are. Unions have played a large role in gaining rights for many different professions.

“If you’re a worker and you’re making decent wages, that’s because of a union, even though you may not belong to a union,” Roberts said. “If you’ve got health care, pension, time off, or any of those things, you should thank a union for that because the union’s made all of that.”

A Gallup poll from 2022 recorded 71% of the public support labor unions; the highest number since 1965.

“Today, the truth of the matter is most workers who don’t have a union want one. If they could vote in the morning to have a union, they’d do it by about 65%,” Roberts said.

UMWA vice president Brian Lacy said the Labor Day celebration in Racine honors the changes unions have fought for over the years and persists into the future.

“We’re here to recognize the sacrifices that people that came before us made to garner better working conditions, safer working conditions, better wages and benefits,” Lacy said. “It’s also to remind people that there’s work still to yet to be done out there in this country for workers.”

He believes unions are as important as they have ever been today.

“The only way that working class has a voice is when you stand together and you belong to a union. We’re stronger together,” he said. “The old saying, ‘Divided we beg. Together we bargain.’ It’s true. We’re stronger together.”

Go here to view video!

Written By: Bailee Tucker

Source: 13News

Date: Sept. 1, 2025

RACINE, W.Va. (WOWK) — With picnics and celebrations happening across the tri-state, one picnic is celebrating the work of coal miners and the impact they have on our lives.

Food grilling, sun shining and families coming together are staples of the Labor Day weekend. But for coal miners, the holiday celebrates the hard work and sacrifice of those who came before them.

“We’re here to recognize the sacrifices the people that came before us made to garner in better working conditions, safer working conditions,” United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) District 17 Vice President Brian Lacey said.

Cecil Roberts, the president of the UMWA and a native of West Virginia, said that the labor movement radically changed the coal mining industry.

“Used to be paid in zero for mining coal. Eight hours, ten hours, 12 hours a day. Seven-year-old kids used to have to go to work in the mines to help support the family,” Roberts said. “Everybody lived in a company house and a company town and went to the company store, and it was the union, the labor movement, that changed it.”

For the last 87 years, the UMWA has hosted a Labor Day picnic in the place where coal was first discovered in the Mountain State to not only celebrate the strides from the past, but to work towards the future.

“And, it’s also to remind people that there’s work still to yet to be done out there in this country for workers,” Lacey said. “They need safer workplaces, stricter safety laws, better wages, better benefits.”

And for Roberts, this year’s picnic is extra special, as this October he will be retiring from the position he’s held since 1995.

He hopes this picnic continues for generations to come.

“I hope it goes for another hundred years,” Roberts said. “And, I hope the union continues to be prevalent. I hope it continues to be important part of our society and our economic well-being.”

Brian Sanson will be taking over Roberts’s position in October.

Written By: Riley McIlmoyle

Source: Coalzoom.com

September 3, 2025 – After leading the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) for 30 years, Cecil Roberts attended his final Labor Day Picnic in Mannington’s Hough Park.

Roberts assumed the presidency in 1995 when then-president Richard Trumpka left the UMWA after being elected as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. Roberts won the first of many elections outright in 1997 and negotiated a new national coal agreement in 1998.

Roberts will officially retire after the International Special Convention in St. Louis when current International Secretary-Treasurer Brian Sanson will become the next president of the UMWA.

“I’ve stayed around longer than anybody but John L. Lewis, and he stayed 40 years as president, and I made 30,” Roberts said. “It was pretty evident to me I wasn’t going to catch him because I would have been almost 90 if I did that, and it is time for new leadership.”

Roberts returned from his service in the United States Army in Vietnam in 1971, when the union coal miners numbered about 70,000. As Roberts made the evolution from miner to labor leader, he supported the efforts of miner Arnold Miller. Miller was an activist who organized a wildcat strike in 1969 that led to the West Virginia legislature passing the first Black Lung law of its kind in the country.

“We had more influence and more power politically to get things passed in the legislature and to preserve health and safety rules to make sure the mines are safer,” Roberts said. “It’s a fight every single day now, and that’s one way it’s changed now, particularly in Appalachia.”

Recent years have been a push and pull with the government that has led to some health and safety advancements, but in recent months that’s changed. Pointing to DOGE cuts and efforts to shrink the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institute for Occupational Safety (NIOSH), and the Mine Safety Health Administration (MSHA), he said the mines are becoming more hazardous, not less dangerous.

“We’ve known for 50 years that silica is dangerous and kills miners quickly,” Roberts said. “We finally got a rule passed by MSHA, and now people are dragging their feet because the operators don’t want it, and that’s not the way that’s supposed to work.”

The 2001 national coal agreement negotiated by Roberts included substantial pension changes for miners. The “30-and-out” contract language allowed miners with 30 years of experience to retire regardless of their age with full benefits. Again in 2005, the new national coal agreement included $500 million in increased contribution requirements by companies into the UMWA pension fund and the highest pay raises for miners since 1974.

“We’re supposed to protect the coal miners—they’re the most important situation in the mines,” Roberts said. “And if we can’t protect the coal miners, then I think we’re failing.”

Roberts said he’s not going to vanish and plans to remain active in union and veteran causes. He believes Brian Sanson and his background in collective bargaining and contract negotiations will be an effective leader for UMWA members nationwide.

“I’m going to be his biggest supporter,” Roberts said. “The good Lord has been good to me; this membership has been good to me. I’ve won more elections than anybody in the history of our union, and when you can do that, you shouldn’t ask for anything else.”