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ONE DAY LONGER. ONE DAY STRONGER. ONE YEAR LATER.

As of April 1, 1,100 Alabama coal mine workers and their families have been on strike for over a year—we can’t forget about them.
Source: The Real News
April 13, 2022
Written by: Kim Kelly
It was supposed to be a terrible day. Thousands of United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) members and supporters were scheduled to convene in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, on the morning of April 6, 2022, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the Warrior Met Coal strike. But, much like the coal bosses themselves, the forecast was not cooperating. The weather report, in typical fickle Alabama fashion, had been fluctuating between rain, more rain, and certain waterlogged doom; the union had bought ponchos in bulk to prepare. As UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said before the rally, “A little bad weather isn’t going to slow us down.”

By the time I arrived at Tannehill State Park that morning, I was fully prepared to spend my day stuck in the mud impersonating a drowned rat. I was not surprised to see that the day’s schedule had been moved up in a bid to outrun the rain. The original start time was slated for 11AM, but the rally was already in full swing by 10:30AM. Like all UMWA rallies, this one opened with a prayer, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only person in the crowd hoping (or praying) that the universe would see fit to send us some good luck after all.

Buses were still arriving as speakers took the stage; according to an emailed UMWA press release, at least 1,200 UMWA members and retirees had bused in from Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia, and they were joined by union members from across the South. It was a family reunion, with a greater purpose—when the call for solidarity went out, folks listened. They came to pay their respects by the hundreds, traveling across rivers and valleys and up from hills and hollers to be there alongside their afflicted siblings.

I lost count of the various union logos I saw emblazoned on different shirts and hats and flags. There were postal workers, teachers, and public transit workers, retail workers and nonprofit workers, steelworkers and ironworkers, all kinds of retirees, and at least one Writers Guild of America, East, councilperson (me). Birmingham DSA showed out, and a huge delegation of UNITE HERE members rolled up from New Orleans. A squad of organizers with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) drove down from Bessemer, where they and the workers at Amazon’s sprawling warehouse remain embroiled in a fight of their own (as of this writing, 416 challenged ballots and 21 unfair labor practice charges against Amazon have stalled any determinative ruling on the final union election results).

That support has been material as well as physical: “To date, the union has paid $20 million out of the UMWA Strike Fund to help the miners this past year and an additional $2 million has been graciously donated from other unions and thousands of individuals,” Roberts noted in a post-rally press release. “We have received especially generous donations from the United Food and Commercial Workers, UNITE-HERE, SMART, the National Nurses Union, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. We have received donations from local and national online fundraising events and have even received donations from workers at Walmart across the country.  Every dime has been given to the miners to support their families.”

As attendees trickled in, I went over to say hello to Danny Whitt, the tall, bearded recording secretary for West Virginia’s storied UMWA Local 1440. We’d first met in historic Matewan, during the Blair Mountain Centennial last year. He greeted me with a smile and told me that he’s hoping I’ll be able to come back down to see them soon. Whitt and his fellow officers in 1440 (as well as many other UMWA retirees) have been working overtime to amplify the story of their ongoing battle over black lung benefits, a now decades-long crusade against a brutal respiratory disease, cadres of penny-pinching coal bosses, and a federal government that seems to have forgotten their struggle. I promised I’d do what I could, then I told him why their fight felt so personal to me. In 2020, my grandfather died after a short and brutal scrap with lung cancer; the official diagnosis was mesothelioma, a rare, aggressive disease caused by exposure to asbestos. He’d spent forty years working in a steel mill, breathing in dust and fibers and god knows what else, and it finally caught up to him right around his 82nd birthday. He was my favorite person.

Whitt, his eyes kind, nodded in recognition. “White lung.”

My heart skipped a beat. I’d never heard that name for it before, but hearing those words instantly deepened my connection with a group of workers with whom I’d already developed such a kinship. While my granddad was breathing in poison in New Jersey, workers from his same generation were choking on dust in underground Appalachian coal mines; as their lungs blackened (and his whitened), garment workers in cotton mills across the country were falling victim to byssinosis—brown lung. A whole rainbow of pain, generations of workers felled by tiny specks of dust and fiber that should never have been there at all, suffocated by deadly debris in the recycled air.

So much of that pain is buried with the generations of workers who bore it, their lives extinguished like so many lamplights even as their descendants head back down into the mines for another 12-hour shift—and another daily gamble with their own health. Those names will never appear in a history book, but the impact that they and their labor has had is incalculable, and the suffering they endured should not be forgotten. Whitt, himself a retired miner and current black lung patient, was only one of a thousand other miners who had shown up that day to support their striking siblings, but every one of those workers’ stories—and lives—has a place in labor history, and in the centuries-old fight against the ravages of capitalism.

 

That history was alive on April 6.

 

The lineup of speakers was stacked with union officials, pastors, and regional leaders. The presidents of the Alabama AFL-CIO, Kentucky AFL-CIO, and Virginia AFL-CIO spoke in support of the strikers; so did American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Secretary-Treasurer Fedrick Ingram, and Anthony Shelton, international president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers Union (BCTGM), who spoke about the support the UMWA had shown his members during their own grueling strike. Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, was a crowd favorite, as usual. Nelson has been one of the strike’s most visible and dedicated supporters—she’s been back down to Alabama as many times as I have to show support and add a little of her patented fire to rally stages. We shared a ride to the rally, and as soon as we arrived, people flocked to her; at one point, I took on the role of unofficial photographer because so many people wanted photos with Sara. During a year-long strike in which mainstream recognition (to say nothing of support) has been hard to find, Nelson’s commitment to showing up for the miners has clearly made an impact. Speaking to the crowd, she drew a direct line between the work her members do 20,000 feet in the air and what the miners do 2,000 feet underground and made a timely point: both breathe recycled air, and that air is only safe because of how hard the unions have fought to make it so.

On the ride over, UMWA International Secretary-Treasurer Brian Sanson had good-naturedly grumbled about having to follow a firecracker like Nelson to the stage. But as I told him then—and will tell you now—the tall, gruff, affable union man has become quite a dynamic public speaker over the past year, and his rhetorical style can be especially electrifying when he’s calling the bosses on their bullshit or castigating do-nothing Republican politicians for abandoning their constituents.

The skies had darkened and the air had grown heavy by the time Cecil Roberts bounded onstage, but, miraculously, save for a few stray drizzles, the promised rain never came. At several points during his speech, the clouds opened up and rays of sunshine illuminated the stage. I’m not a religious person, but that moment almost made a believer out of me.

To watch Cecil Roberts speak is a near-religious experience; his voice rises, falls, and growls with the fervor of an old-time mountain preacher. When he gets fired up—and he’s always just a hair away from getting fired up—you can almost feel the passion of history pouring out of him like light, from his ancestors Bill and Ma Blizzard, who waged war on King Coal during the Battle of Blair Mountain, to the thousands of coal miners he’s fought for and alongside during his long career in labor. Roberts, a former miner himself, came up through the rank and file, and it shows; at one point, as drops had begun to fall, he joked that no one there was afraid of rain since they were so used to getting wet underground. The major concern was making sure that they could get the buses—and hundreds of retirees, some of them unsteady on their feet—out safely. Luckily, the rain took its time getting to McCalla, and the rally went off without a hitch.

It was a really lovely affair, suffused with the familial quality that is so common at UMWA events and bolstered by the appearance of the strikers’ many supporters. I’ve lost count of how many of these rallies I’ve attended by now. My coverage of this story has taken me to McCalla, to New York City—where the miners rallied in front of BlackRock, calling on Warrior Met’s majority shareholders to force the bosses to the table—and to Washington, DC, where I sat in on a Senate hearing held by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren to address the impact of private equity greed on the American working class. Braxton Wright, a striking miner and current Amazon worker, spoke during the hearing, and his testimony was heartfelt and wrenching. When Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Arkansas-born former football coach and current corporate lapdog and insurrectionist, took his turn at the mic, he spoke in favor of the company, parroting anti-worker talking points that might as well have been scribbled by Warrior Met’s own executives. The contrast was jarring. When Tuberville stopped to try to speak with Braxton afterwards, Wright’s wife Haeden hissed, “Don’t you shake his hand!” Chastened, Tuberville and his staff turned tail and slunk out. Through my year of covering this strike from as close to the inside as a South Philly muckraker can get, that was the first and only time I saw an Alabama GOP politician acknowledge the strike—or the coal miners themselves.

I’ve long wondered at how little press the Warrior Met Coal strike has gotten over the past year. While that has thankfully begun to change, it still burns me up that this fascinating, complicated labor story that involves thousands of multiracal, multigender, multigenerational, rural, blue-collar union workers and their families, who all have nuanced and sometimes conflicting social, political, and cultural experiences, has largely been ignored outside of the labor press and the occasional bigger-league article or feature. I’ve done my damnedest to give it as much coverage as I can everywhere I can—from right here on The Real News to Elle Magazine—but that’s been tough too. I’ve spent the past year ping-ponging between Alabama and my little house a few blocks off Broad Street, where I’ve been holed up writing my first book, FIGHT LIKE HELL: The Untold History of American Labor. Digging through 300 years of working-class history while trying to keep abreast of every minute development in the strike consumed every waking hour and cemented my commitment to this strike and these workers. It’s always been personal, but now the two will forever be entwined in my memory. FIGHT LIKE HELL wouldn’t have been the same without them.

When I turned in the final edits, the strike was in its tenth month, and I’d fervently hoped to end the book with news of their victory. Instead, the strike goes on, and the miners continue to march. My sources have become my friends; Haeden, president of the local UMWA Auxiliary, soon-to-be local Democratic official, and the first person who would consider talking to me on record, is basically my sister. All I want is for my friends to be happy, and healthy, and to win this damn thing. There is no happy ending just yet, or even a messy and unsatisfying one; right now, the only certainty is that it won’t be over until it’s over. (And at this rate, I’m going to have to write a whole new book entirely about the strike, to make sure the real story gets out there).

When I spoke to striking miner Greg Pilkerton after the rally, he wasn’t shy about expressing himself, telling me how badly he just wants to get back to work. A year on the picket line is hard enough without considering the endless roadblocks, sabotage, and malfeasance that Warrior Met has thrown their way, and it’s no wonder that these workers are tired; tired of fighting, tired of working second jobs, tired of worrying about bills, tired of being slandered and smeared by a big money PR firm that their bosses hired. Some of them, like Greg and his wife Amy, have been injured by company-enabled violence; others have cut ties with friends or family members who chose to cross the uncrossable picket line. It’s been incredibly difficult every step of the way, but the vast majority of the strikers are still standing, and they’re not giving up now. “Now, we’re almost more dug in,” Haeden Wright  told me before we met for dinner with some of the other auxiliary members and their striking family members. “At the beginning, they were like, ‘We’re gonna starve them out in a few weeks, in a few months’… Well, none of us are starving.”

The union’s motto—“one day longer, one day stronger”—has become a mantra for the strike, as well as a manifesto. However long the company wants to drag out the strike by refusing to get serious at the bargaining table, these workers are determined to keep holding the line. As Pilkerton told me, “We ain’t going nowhere.”

Unions rally for striking Alabama miners

SOURCE: al.com
DATE: April 6, 2022


Representatives of labor unions from around the country were expected today at Tannehill State Park for a rally in support of striking coal miners with the United Mine Workers of America.

The miners began a strike more than a year ago against Warrior Met Coal in Brookwood. The UMWA organized a caravan today to show support for the miners, who union leadership said last week now number around 900.

Members of the United Auto Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers, Association of Flight Attendants, and Unite Here were expected at the event.

The union hosted a similar rally last August in Brookwood.

The strike began April 1, 2021. The old agreement with the union was negotiated as Warrior Met emerged from the bankruptcy proceedings of the former Walter Energy, which declared bankruptcy in 2016.

Union members say they made numerous concessions at that time in pay, benefits, holidays, overtime and in other areas to keep the company going and get it out of bankruptcy. Those concessions, they say, have not been restored in subsequent offers from the company.

According to Warrior Met Coal’s quarterly reports, the company last year incurred $21.4 million in non-recurring expenses directly attributable to the strike for security and other expenses, and $33.9 million in idle mine expenses.

Written by: William Thornton

Opinion: From Amazon to Warrior Met, unions need government protections

By Sherrod Brown

Democrat Sherrod Brown is the senior senator from Ohio.

 

A year ago, more than a thousand coal miners with the United Mine Workers of America dropped their tools and walked out of the Warrior Met Coal Mine in Brookwood, Ala. Today, their strike continues, making it one of the longest strikes in recent history.

It illuminates the contradictions of the modern labor movement.

In many ways, organized labor has more momentum behind it than it’s had in recent history: President Biden is one of the most pro-union presidents in decades; recent surveys show the highest public support for labor unions in almost 50 years; and several high-profile unionization efforts have found success at companies such as Starbucks, John Deere, Kellogg’s and even Amazon.

On April 1, workers in Staten Island celebrated the first successful unionization effort at an Amazon warehouse. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Yet, union membership remains near historic lows. Organized labor still faces enormous obstacles against massive corporations whose dominance in the economy we haven’t seen since Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency.

And, just as in the Gilded Age, workers often feel like they have no one in government on their side.

In the midst of that era of corporate dominance, it was Roosevelt who first established the public interest in ensuring workers’ voices are heard.

With the help of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and UNUM, his digital platform exploring the intersection of history and current events, I want to revisit a moment in 1902 when the very same union striking today in Alabama helped push Roosevelt to set a new precedent: The federal government has an essential role to play in labor disputes.

And while no one is calling for nationalizing an entire industry today, as Roosevelt threatened then, this moment is an important reminder that our government must work to protect workers’ right to organize for fair pay and safe working conditions.

Warrior Met Coal strike reaches one year mark, possibly longest in Alabama history: ‘We didn’t want to do this’

Source: al.com

March 31, 2022

 

“We didn’t want to do this.”

 

United Mine Workers of America International President Cecil Roberts said the words in thinking back on the last year, one day short of the first anniversary of the union’s strike against Warrior Met Coal.

 

It is believed to be the longest strike in Alabama history.

By all accounts, no one saw it lasting this long.

The work stoppage, the first for the Alabama miners in four decades, began April 1, 2021.

Roberts, who has been president of the union for the past 26 years, said today it was the first major strike of his tenure.

Several times over the last 12 months he had thought it was close to ending.

“It should have ended months and months ago,” he said. “In fact, quite frankly, I don’t think there should have been a strike in Alabama.”

Curtis Turner is the president of the Local Union 2427 Central Shop. He worked for 36 years in the mines and, like Roberts, never expected the strike to continue for a year.

“We’ve made this company one of the largest met coal producers and sellers in the U.S., and the company is very profitable,” he said. “I just cannot believe the company has taken this position. In my opinion, it’s just corporate greed.”

The old agreement with the union was negotiated as Warrior Met emerged from the bankruptcy proceedings of the former Walter Energy, which declared bankruptcy in 2016.

Union members say they made numerous concessions at that time in pay, benefits, holidays, overtime and in other areas to keep the company going and get it out of bankruptcy. Those concessions, they say, have not been restored in subsequent offers from the company.

According to the union, miners lost about $6 an hour under the bankruptcy contract, which added up even more when you consider the accumulation of overtime.

“We were basically promised back in 2016 that if we did this contract, that if we made the company viable over the course of that contract, we would go back to whatever everyone else is making and back to the benefit package,” Turner said.

“Then they told us, we don’t think we made those promises.”

In the tentative offer, the company proposed a $1.50 raise over five years, the union says.

“In my opinion, we had no other choice,” Roberts said.

Nearly two weeks into the strike, it appeared a settlement had been reached, but that was rejected after the union members voted down the tentative agreement by 95%, Roberts said.

Warrior Met Coal did not comment for this story.

The company established a website, Warrior Met Coal Facts, to counter what it says are misleading statements in the media by union members.

Warrior Met says it has put forward eight full written proposals for a new contract in the last year and offered a 10% to 12% raise.

Roberts counters by saying the eight proposals are virtually indistinguishable from the tentative agreement that was overwhelming voted down by the union last April.

According to the company, the proposed contract from April 2021 offered reduced deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses on healthcare, a policy that miners wouldn’t be scheduled for seven consecutive days unless the employee agreed, offered additional holidays, and increased the number of unexcused absences allowed.

The union says the strike has cost the company close to $1 billion in lost revenue.

It arrives at that figure based on the price of metallurgical coal, which is used in steel production. Last year, when the strike began, the price fluctuated around $100 per ton. Within the last month, the price soared to more than $400 per ton.

According to Warrior Met Coal’s quarterly reports, the company last year incurred $21.4 million in non-recurring expenses directly attributable to the strike for security and other expenses, and $33.9 million in idle mine expenses.

“While the Company has business continuity plans in place, the strike may still cause disruption to production and shipment activities, and the plans may vary significantly from quarter to quarter for the full year of 2022,” the company warned in its last earnings report in February.

When the strike was initially announced, as many as 1,100 members were said to have been participating. Roberts said the number is closer to 900, and about 15% have gone back to work over the past year.

According to Roberts, the union has provided just under $20 million to its striking members over the last year, including healthcare coverage, and has been able to pay about $1.8 million using contributions from other unions and private individuals. The union could continue to pay out strike benefits for the next four to five years, he said.

“If the company is trying to put us in a position where we couldn’t pay these workers strike benefits, that’s not going to happen,” he said. “They need to rethink that.”

Turner said morale among strikers remains high. Food banks continue to distribute to families, and members rally every week.

“The people are just looking for a decent contract and being able to go back to work,” he said. “They realize they’re sacrificing a lot but its for a better future for them. They’re pretty well pumped. We’re not going anywhere.”

The strike has had its volatile moments.

In October, Circuit Judge James H. Roberts Jr. issued a restraining order against picketing “or other activity” within 300 yards of 12 different locations owned by Warrior Met Coal in Tuscaloosa County, including mines and offices.

This came after the company issued a statement saying the level of violence taking place along the picket line in Tuscaloosa County had “reached a dangerous level.” The company also released video of car and truck windows being smashed that it says happened to workers attempting to cross the picket line.

Last May, nearly a dozen miners were arrested during a protest outside a mine. In June, union members reported at least three instances of violence along picket lines. The union also objected to the use of the Highway Patrol Division of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency to escort miners across the picket line.

Just in the last week, the FBI began investigating a suspected attack March 24 using an explosive device to a Warrior Met Coal natural gas pipeline along Hannah Creek Road in eastern Tuscaloosa County. There were no reported injuries. That came after damage to electrical transmission and distribution equipment on the company’s property reported on three occasions last May and June.

The union has denounced such incidents. Roberts said he has “called for non-violence” throughout the strike.

“But our people are dodging cars out on the picket line,” he said. “They’ve had threats made against them by workers inside those facilities. They’ve had guns pulled on them. But they’ve endured all of that.”

Turner said union members continue to station people outside mining locations, honoring the restraining order while continuing a picketing presence.

“We have to carry our people, drop them off, and come back and pick them up,” he said. “Some of these locations are so remote that they don’t have cell phone service. It’s real tough on individuals to participate.”

The union hasn’t just confined its picketing activity to Tuscaloosa County. Last year, miners protested at the Manhattan offices of BlackRock, the largest shareholder in Warrior Met Coal, on three different occasions. At one protest, Roberts was handcuffed, along with five other people, as the union attempted to aim attention at the companies they say are responsible for the conditions that made the strike happen.

By spotlighting the role of private equity firms in business, the strike also gained the attention of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass). Last month, a Brookwood miner and Roberts testified before the Senate Budget Committee.

Roberts said the union remains ready to make a deal to get members back to work.

“Somebody on the other side has got to want a collective bargaining agreement,” Roberts said. “We could find a way to reach an agreement. It’s like dancing with ourselves.”

By William Thornton | wthornton@al.com

82 Year Commemoration of the Willow Grove Mining Disaster

Source: WTRF.com

March 20, 2022

 

BELMONT COUNTY, OHIO (WTRF)- It has been 82 years since the tragic Willow Grove Mine accident.

On March 16, 1940, an explosion ripped through the Willow Grove Mine, taking the life of 72 workers.

To honor the lives that were lost, family and community members gathered at the mine site in Neffs in Belmont County for a memorial service.

Leading the ceremony was, Rick Altman, District 31 Vice President of the United Mine Workers of America.

He says it’s critical that we continue sharing their story.

 

“People don’t realize how important it is to remember our history.

“In order to move forward we truly have to remember where we came from and the people that cost and gave up their lives so that we can have a better life.

“Not just for us, but for our kids and grandkids in the future.”

RICK ALTMAN, DISTRICT 31 VICE PRESIDENT, UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA 

 

Flags were lowered to half-mast, and those present held a moment of silence.

Altman says the impact of this disaster is still present in today’s community.

 

“Your heart breaks when you hear some of the stories and it’s like Secretary Brian Sanson said it affects, generations that they didn’t get to spend time with their grandkids.

“They only hear stories and It’s a wonderful feeling to know that we can give finality and a true resting place for people who’ve been really disturbed for.

“82 years they haven’t had a place to call home.

“Now they’re home.”

RICK ALTMAN, DISTRICT 31 VICE PRESIDENT, UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA 

 

Many other people spoke at the ceremony, including former State Representative Jack Cera, and Belmont County Sheriff David Lucas.

 

The name of each miner was read aloud, and wreaths were placed on the memorial stone. Even nearby churches rang their bells in their memory.

The Belmont County Veterans Association then performed a 21-gun salute.

This ceremony reminds us of the sacrifices these miners made in the 1940s but also reminds you that modern miners still face risk and danger every day and deserve respect.

 

Written by:

Energy startup to bring electric battery factory to W.Va.

SOURCE: AP
DATE: 3/17/22

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The energy startup SPARKZ said Thursday it plans to build an electric battery factory in West Virginia in 2022 that will employ at least 350 people.

The company will partner with the United Mine Workers of America to recruit and train dislocated miners to be the factory’s first production workers.

“We need good, union jobs in the coalfields no matter what industry they are in,” said UMWA International Secretary-Treasurer Brian Sanson. “This is a start toward putting the tens of thousands of already-dislocated coal miners to work in decent jobs in the communities where they live.”

SPARKZ Founder and CEO Sanjiv Malhotra said the batteries produced at the factory will be 100% cobalt-free batteries, an effort to bring down the cost of U.S. lithium-ion battery production. The Democratic Republic of Congo has historically been the top producer of cobalt worldwide, with most mines controlled by Chinese companies.

Malhotra said the operation will be a boon to U.S. efforts to counter China’s dominance of the electric battery market. The factory is also a major step for West Virginia as the state transitions from its roots in coal production to the “new energy economy,” he said.

“America’s clean energy future will reach its potential when we innovate and manufacture the next generation of energy storage domestically,” Malhotra, a former U.S. Department of Energy executive, said in a news release.

SPARKZ is in the final stages of site selection in West Virginia for the factory, but the precise location of the plant has not been determined. The company, founded in 2019, said it will be announcing customer partnerships in the coming months. Its first markets will likely be in material handling vehicles, like forklifts, agricultural equipment and energy storage.

Malhotra said he plans to make the official announcement about the factory Friday during a visit in Charleston with U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Mulhern Granholm and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sanson of the United Mine Workers of America also planned to attend.

Miners vs. Wall Street: Strikes in the Era of Asset Management Capitalism

SOURCE: NPQ
DATE: March 16, 2022

“It’s difficult to tell your children that you can’t do things because you are not at work right now, you are on strike…It’s not fair. They exploit our work. They work us on skeleton crews…Then we get to watch them sit in the office and make $4 million dollars a year,” Braxton Wright, a United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) Local 2368 member, testified before the Senate Budget Committee on Capitol Hill on February 17, 2022.


Wright is one of more than 1,000 coal miners in Alabama on strike against Warrior Met Coal, a company whose largest shareholder is BlackRock Investment Group, the world’s biggest asset manager.

Nearly a year after the strike began on April 1, 2021, the miners represented by UMWA are still fighting to restore concessions they took to help Warrior Met Coal emerge from the Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring of Walter Energy in 2015. As part of an agreement in federal bankruptcy court, asset management companies Blackstone, Apollo Global Management, and KKR bought the remnants of Walter Energy and were allowed to reject prior labor agreements, including union miners’ collective bargaining agreement and their retiree pension and healthcare agreement.

By 2019, these private equity firms had all sold their shares in Warrior Met and, as stated in a letter to investors from Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Tammy Baldwin, “appear to have made off like bandits,” while a new batch of Wall Street firms —including BlackRock, with an almost 14% stake, and Vanguard, with an approximately 12% stake— now hold the largest shares of the company.

Today, UMWA is confronting this legacy of Wall Street firms’ initial restructuring and continued controlling investment in Warrior Met during their labor dispute. At a strike rally in Brookwood, Alabama, UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts explained, “Warrior Met is the creation of a shadowy network of New York hedge funds and investment banks…The workers gave up more than $1.1 billion in wages, health care benefits, pensions, and more to allow Warrior Met to emerge from bankruptcy five years ago. The company has enjoyed revenue in excess of $3.4 billion in that time. But it does not want to recognize the sacrifices these workers made to allow it to exist in the first place.”

The strikers at Warrior Met are far from the only workers dealing with companies whose largest shareholder is a Wall Street fund. BlackRock and Vanguard are frequently referred to as two of the Big Three (along with State Street) in the literature on asset management capitalism, which has proliferated in the United States since the 2008 financial crisis.

While academic studies cite that “as of December 2018 one of Vanguard, BlackRock, or State Street was the largest shareholder in 438 of the S&P 500 companies,” Senator Bernie Sanders, in a Senate Budget Committee testimony last month, stated that today the Big Three “are major shareholders in more than 96% of S&P 500 companies. In other words, they have significant influence over many hundreds of companies that employ millions of American workers.”

“Interestingly enough, if you haven’t heard much about the power of these Wall Street firms, it may have something to do with the fact that a small number of Wall Street firms control about half of the newspapers in America,” Sanders pointed out.

As asset management capitalism flourishes and an increasing number of companies have Wall Street funds as majority shareholders, more workers and unions will be navigating industrial labor relations, like the UMWA has with the dispute at Warrior Met.

To meet these challenges, UMWA is building a model for organized resistance against Wall Street funds’ exploitation of workers. In the Warrior Met strike, UMWA must target both Wall Street’s Frankenstein assemblage of the company from the remains of Walter Energy, as well as continued investments by financial firms such as BlackRock and Vanguard. To pressure the company and Wall Street shareholders towards an equitable labor contract, the union has developed a strategic campaign with simultaneous local, national, and legislative actions, which offers a glimpse into the potential future of labor and social movements in an increasingly financialized economy.

Holding the Line at Home: Strategic Local Action

As underground coal mining continues to be one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States, safety continues to be a significant concern for strikers, who work near the location of “one of nation’s worst mine disasters” that killed 13 workers at the Walters Resources Mine No. 5 on September 23, 2001. Additionally, while Wall Street firms, including Apollo and Blackstone, have paid themselves and stockholders nearly $800 million in Warrior Met dividends, miners in Alabama strike to earn back the $6/hour pay cuts, longer hours, fewer holidays, and increased health care costs they agreed to as temporary measures to help Warrior Met become profitable.

“The strikers only want something fair,” UMWA International District 22 Vice President Mike Dalpiaz explains. “To get the mine going after restructuring, we wanted to get the membership back to work. But after making the company hundreds of millions of dollars in the last five to six years, it’s time to come back for the concessions that miners took to help Warrior Met.”

Today, the miners in Alabama have come back in full force. In June, the union held what they believe is the largest labor rally in the history of the state, and the UMWA Warrior Met strike has now become the longest strike in Alabama’s history. However, maintaining a labor dispute for nearly a year hasn’t been easy for the workers or the union.

Strikers have reported company violence, including vehicular assaults on the picket line. Roberts issued a statement June 2021 saying, “We have members in casts, we have members in the hospital, we have members who are concerned about their families and potential of violence against them if they come to the picket line.”

Four months later, in October 2021, a Tuscaloosa County circuit judge delivered a blow to strikers’ ability to engage in otherwise legal, protected concerted activity by issuing a restraining order against UMWA picket activity due to allegations of escalating violence from picketers. UMWA released a blistering statement against the ruling as an “assault on the rights and freedoms of working families that has been the government’s hallmark during this strike. It contains provisions that are unconstitutional and it reinforces the notion that Americans – at least in Alabama – are not free to enjoy their rights to free speech and free assembly.”

Such rulings set a dangerous precedent for restricting workers’ right to speak out on wages, hours, working conditions, and Unfair Labor Practices, as afforded under the U.S. Constitution and the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. Moreover, described as “a rare incursion by a local court into a private-sector strike—an activity protected under federal labor law for nearly a century,” the restraining order underscores the continued local challenges tenacious strikers have faced during a protracted strike in the traditionally anti-union Deep South.

Dalpiaz confirmed that Alabama State Police are essentially functioning as “private security” to usher temporary workers onto the mine property, a move that significantly reduces the strike’s economic impact on Warrior Met. Roberts emphasizes the effect this has also had on the local and state economy. “Alabama State Police have been working on the public’s dime to escort out-of-state strikebreakers who have been brought in to take Alabama taxpayers’ jobs. Where is the sense in that? We have seen no protest or investigation by our state’s leaders about this clear misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

Despite obstacles from Alabama courts, politicians, and police, strikers continue to hold the line nearly a year after the strike began. Dalpiaz emphasizes that the union believes fostering grassroots involvement and action is key to success. “We have kept this strike in Alabama alive by making membership the focus. At the end of the day, they have to live with this contract.” These workers remain the foundational, guiding force for a labor dispute that has taken on national dimensions.

 

“We Are Everywhere”: Taking the Struggle to the National Stage

Far from the Warrior Met mines in Alabama, UMWA picketers march outside the Manhattan headquarters of company’s larger shareholder, BlackRock, donning camouflage shirts emblazoned with the union logo and the phrase, “We Are Everywhere.” For months, they have been a steadfast presence at Wall Street firms who have invested in Warrior Met, including BlackRock, Apollo, and KKR.

Phil Smith, UMWA Director of Communications and Governmental Affairs, explains that having a Wall Street fund as the largest shareholder of a company alters industrial labor relations, in part, because it “frees the company up from the supervision that might come from traditional human shareholders.” As the UMWA merges more traditional strike tactics in Alabama with national and legislative approaches, the miners picketing Wall Street give a human face to the material impact that Warrior Met’s disembodied investment structure has on workers’ lives.

The national expansion of labor actions is described by Dalpiaz as an escalation of grassroots worker power. “On the ground, we speak with members and have rallies once a week to keep members informed and plan together what we think we need to do across the whole United States to pressure all stakeholders. You go where they are. The whole purpose is so they know we are here – everywhere across the country.”

On November 3, 2021, in an act of peaceful resistance during a rally outside BlackRock headquarters, 75-year-old Roberts and five other Mineworkers sat down and blocked traffic. They were arrested by the New York City police. Two weeks later, UMWA coordinated simultaneous national and global protests outside BlackRock offices on Wall Street; Melbourne, Australia; and across the United States, including the Alabama State Capitol, Denver, Washington, D.C., Boston, Newport Beach, and other locations.

While other unions and workers have joined in solidarity with UMWA, actions to pressure Wall Street firms have not been without their challenges—or surprises.

Smith explains that as UMWA coordinates their actions on Wall Street and fund management offices across the country, they have to be aware of who, or what, is the target at each location. “Renaissance Tech is top ten shareholders of Warrior Met, but when planning a picket, we found that in their New York headquarters, the only people working there are hired to service the computers…Decisions on when to buy and sell stocks are no longer made by humans.”

Smith recognizes that, under these circumstances, national and international strategic union action must be designed to influence the financial market. “Fund managers aren’t making day-to-day decisions on what happens with an investment that includes Warrior Met; a computer is. Some of these locations are just supercomputers and a few people who operate them. The only thing the computer cares about is how much money it makes. If it isn’t it making money, it can stop the behaviors and engage in new behaviors.”

Automated computer trading means that the strike needs to invoke financial losses that not only pressure Warrior Met’s human CEO and Board of Directors to come to an equitable labor agreement but also change the programmed behavior of a computer operating within certain parameters to buy and sell stocks. In November 2021, Warrior Met reported that the strike had cost them $16.2 million in increased costs over the previous quarter. However, with increased coal prices over the same period, even this multi-million dollar expenditure has not resulted in a drop in company stock value, nor has it significantly altered computer (or overall human shareholder) behavior.

Beyond the traditional image of strike picket lines and rallies, addressing computer algorithms is not typically one of the first components envisioned in a strategic union campaign during a labor dispute. However, for workers at a growing number of companies whose stocks are largely controlled by Wall Street funds, perhaps it may be. Recognizing this, the UMWA has not only taken its fight to Wall Street but also to the legislative powers that have the potential to regulate proliferating asset management capitalism.

Follow the Money: Wall Street Legislative Reform

“There should be some level of responsibility from Wall Street,” states Smith. Through the bankruptcy process “Apollo [Global Management] molded Warrior Met into what it is, and we are still dealing with this investment structure. How do you fight that? The only way is through legislation and better regulation of what private equity and asset management firms are doing.”

Smith’s statement highlights the importance of policy changes that are not only applicable to the current Warrior Met strike but also could have wider ramifications for the growing number of U.S. companies whose largest shareholder is a Wall Street fund. Recognizing this, UMWA has taken the fight to the halls of legislature, garnering political allies such as U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and Bernie Sanders to speak out against Wall Street firms’ impact on workers and for regulatory legislation such as the Stop Wall Street Looting Act. This legislation would prioritize worker pay in the bankruptcy process; create incentive for job retention; and end the immunity of private equity firms from legal liability when companies they own break the law.

On an AFL-CIO panel, Warren, who co-sponsors the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, explained, “What happed at Warrior Met is what happens when these billion dollar Wall Street firms come to town. They suck as much as they can out of these companies to line their own pockets and it comes at the expense of worker and communities. The fact is that Warrior Met workers are on strike today because private equity gave them a bad deal.”

While Wall Street firms claim passive power over corporate America, Sen. Sanders is quick to counter this assertion. During the Senate Budget Committee hearing on “Wall Street Greed and Growing Oligarchy in America,” he explains that the Big Three of asset management firms — BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street — say “they are not involved in the day-to-day decisions of the companies they own, but let us be clear, these three companies own nearly one-fourth of votes at shareholder meetings, leveraging their power to influence CEO compensation, stock buy backs, environmental commitments, mergers, and pension benefits.”

***

It is this type of power that UMWA is pressuring BlackRock to assert over Warrior Met as its largest shareholder to reach an equitable labor contract. With just three asset management firms holding “about 80% of all indexed money” in 2020 and currently managing “a combined $21 trillion in assets, which surpasses the GDP of the U.S.,” Wall Street firms maintain a tremendous amount of voting power over major companies that employ millions of workers.

Through their strike at Warrior Met, UMWA miners provide U.S. workers with a model of multilevel labor mobilization that can combat underregulated asset management capitalism and harness private equity’s potential to sway corporate boards or management during labor disputes. It’s a fight that might have its epicenter in little Brookwood, Alabama, with a population of 2,000, but it has ramifications for 12,000,000 workers in the United States employed by companies who have Wall Street funds as their largest shareholders. The strikers’ struggle shows workers across the country how they can fight back against the power of asset management capitalism — and plan to win.

To support union strikers at Warrior Met, visit UMWA Strike Aid.

 

Written by: Dr. Ericka Wills

‘It’s beyond disrespectful’: W.Va. coal miners call for no vote on mine safety bill

SOURCE: wchstv.com
DATE: February 28, 2022

 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — Some West Virginia coal miners say their safety is in question with a proposed bill that would affect how mine safety is regulated.

House Bill 4840 made its way out of the House of Delegates Government Organization Committee and landed inside the chambers. The piece of legislation had its first reading on Monday, and a public hearing was held with dozens of coal miners voicing their concerns. Many call the bill reckless, saying blood was spilled for the state’s current laws.

Harrison County coal miner Steve Zimmerman said if the bill passes, it would set mine safety back 50 years.

“The bill is doing disrespect to the men that are buried, the men that are still in those hills that will never come home,” Zimmerman said. “It’s beyond disrespectful.”

Under the bill, the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training would take on a new role. Mine inspections and fines for safety violations would turn into visits and recommendations.

“No one wants to work in an unsafe environment. In a mine, it could go from bad to worse very quickly,” Zimmerman said.

A part of the safety committee at his mine, Zimmerman said he knows the best practices, and to him, House Bill 4048 will affect miners’ safety.

“Everything about the bill rolls back safety 50 years. From apprentice miners not having the proper experience to obtain their black hat certification, which means they can go out by themselves, to eliminating the state inspectors ability to cite violations and charge the company,” Zimmerman said.

The West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training 2021 annual report shows that the agency conducted 4,953 inspections and found 6,679 safety violations at mines across the state. A closer look at the violations show those violations were in the following areas: electricity 1,519, equipment 926, and ventilation 225.

Last year, four miners died on the job, and already in 2022, two were killed. The latest was on Monday morning, hours before the public hearing, when a McDowell County miner lost his life.

“I want to send my condolences to that family that lost a miner today as well as his co-workers in that company,” Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis, said. “It’s not good news, and I sponsored this bill, so we don’t have to do that again.”

Burkhammer is one of House Bill 4840’s three sponsors. The current system is not working for him, and he wants to take a more proactive approach through training.

“I do want to save miners’ lives, and I believe we can do that with better and adequate training,” Burkhammer said.

Miners such as Brian Toothman like the training aspect of the bill, but he emphasized losing safety regulations puts lives at risk.

“We don’t ever want to take away anything we have as far as safety,” Toothman said. “A lot of us are looking at the long-term effects.”

Eyewitness News reached out to the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training for its reaction to the bill but have not heard back.

On Tuesday, the bill has its second reading in the House.

 

Written by: Danielle Dindak

House holds hearing on state mining office, most speakers oppose changes

SOURCE: WV MetroNews
DATE: February 28, 2022

 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Multiple speakers at a House of Delegates public hearing Monday challenged a proposal on the state Office of Miner’s Health Safety and Training, sharing concerns about how changes could affect miner safety.

House Bill 4840 would shift the agency’s goals from enforcing and executing the state’s mining laws to assisting mine operators and providing “alternative mechanisms of enforcement.” Compliance visits to mines would happen as frequently as the office’s director would deem necessary.

Most speakers opposed the bill, saying the legislation would reduce safety for coal miners.

“Every one of these laws that’s written, state and federal, they’re not wrote by ink. They’re wrote by blood,” said Barry Brown, a coal miner with 32 years of underground mining experience. “Every one of these laws has blood on them. … Doing away with the state department and their enforcement, I think, would be the worse thing that this state could do.”

The agency currently focuses on inspecting mining locations and issuing penalties against operators. Officials also work with federal agencies on investigations.

“We keep cutting walls and stuff. We keep taking shortcuts,” Brown said. “I’m a union guy, and I believe when you take shortcuts, that is when things are going to happen, and we’re opening up the doors for this.”

Chad Francis, a representative of the United Mine Workers of America, criticized multiple parts of the bill’s provisions, including a reduction in apprenticeship hours and the change in the agency’s mission.

“Anyone who can comprehend this bill knows it does nothing to make mines safer,” he said.

Francis added, “If coal companies always did what was right, we wouldn’t need inspectors to write violations to help keep mines safe.”

UMWA President Cecil Roberts spoke against the legislation on Monday’s “MetroNews Talkline.”

“I’m upset that anyone in the state of West Virginia that knows anything about coal mining can’t possibly believe we need less enforcement in the coal industry,” he said.

The public hearing took place hours after state officials confirmed the death of a coal miner at a McDowell County site. Steven Hively, 52, of Philippi was working underground at the Ramaco Resources Berwind Mine when he was pinned by an air drill.

“We should tell those who are sponsoring this legislation that the first agency on the scene this morning was not MSHA, it was the state,” Roberts added. “I would submit to you the miners in West Virginia need all the protection that they can get.”

West Virginia Coal Association President Chris Hamilton spoke in favor of the measure during the hearing; he contended companies excel in examining their mines and ensuring miners are trained.

“Despite what you regularly hear from some, the coal industry takes great pride in its safety program and overall mine safety performance record,” he said. “No other program receives more attention or has greater resources dedicated to it.”

The House of Delegates on Tuesday will consider the measure on second reading.