At Last, Peace in the Coalfields

After 109 days, the miners reluctantly end their strike

Finally it was over. After 109 days, two abortive contract offers and untold expenditures of rancor, obstinacy and personal discomfort, rank-and-file members of the United Mine Workers voted late last week to end their strike. With union leaders promising that the 165,000 miners would return to their jobs on Monday and mine owners predicting that coal shipments would be back to normal within the week, the energy crisis that had been threatening--but never quite materializing--in a dozen Eastern Central states seemed to have passed.

As the miners began voting on the contract in the hollows and flatlands of coal country on Good Friday morning, few involved in the negotiations--coal operators, union officials and federal mediators--held out more than a fifty-fifty chance of approval. Indeed, as the first returns were announced by militant locals in western Pennsylvania and southern Illinois, it looked as if the miners were about to deal a thumping rejection to the pact, as they had done to a previous contract proposal three weeks earlier. But when most of the ballots were tallied, they showed that the rank and file had approved the contract, 58,380 to 44,210. U.M.W. President Arnold Miller reacted with a smile and a one-word comment to Secretary-Treasurer Willard Esselstyn: "Good." To reporters, Miller acknowledged that the contract did not give the miners everything they wanted. But he called it "better than anything I ever worked under."

The fact was that time had just about run out for the miners, and they knew it. If they had voted no, national bargaining between the U.M.W. and the 130-member Bituminous Coal Operators' Association might have broken down completely. The coal companies and union locals would have begun negotiating on their own. Disillusioned miners thought that further negotiations at any level would not gain them a better contract, at least not one worth continuing the strike for. "It's kind of like playing poker at this point," said Cecil Roberts, 31, a vice president of the U.M. W.'s District 17 in West Virginia. "It's hard to win three hands in a row."

Warmer weather and increased production from non-U.M.W. mines had undercut the strike's effectiveness. Moreover, the financial burden of the walkout was finally grinding down the stubborn miners and their families. "I'm hurtin'," confessed Miner Johnny Elkins, 25, of Hernshaw, W. Va., who voted against the last contract offer. To make ends meet, he had been cutting and selling firewood for $35 a truckload. "Now spring's coming," said Elkins, "and people ain't needing firewood." So he traded in his chain saw for a secondhand trail bike and voted for the contract. Added Burl Holbrook, 35, a miner in nearby Cabin Creek Hollow: "Principles are nice, but you can't buy food with them."

The new contract provides for a hefty wage increase of 31 % over three years, to as much as $11.40 an hour. The pact also contains two touchy fringe-benefit provisions that were at the heart of many miners' opposition to it: 1) an annual maximum charge of $200 for medical care to miners' families, which was formerly free, and 2) a $50 pension increase, to $275 a month, for most retired miners instead of an across-the-board hike to $500 as originally demanded by the U.M.W.

While operators have kept their mines ready for production, it will take months for coal supplies to be completely replenished in the states most seriously affected by the strike. Some utilities had to reduce their production of electric power--by up to 25% in western Pennsylvania and Indiana. As a result, industries had to lay off some 25,000 workers. Yet the U.S. economy is expected to emerge almost unscathed; economists expect any growth lost because of the strike to be regained in the second quarter of 1978.

Some of the strike's other effects will take longer to repair. Jimmy Carter was tarnished by his eleventh-hour efforts to pressure the coal operators into settling the dispute and then his fruitless invocation of the Taft-Hartley Act to get the miners back to work. An Associated Press-NBC News opinion poll taken just before last week's contract ratification showed that two-thirds of Americans believed that Carter had performed poorly during the strike, chiefly by doing too little too late.

Worse hurt is U.M.W. President Miller. His fumbling performance during negotiations--first endorsing a proposal that his union bargaining council rejected, then backing a second offer that the miners turned down--has contributed to anger and contempt toward him among the union's members. "The mine operators haven't hurt us half as much as our leadership," growled Mike Adkins, 35, financial secretary of 223-member Local 1759 near Chelyan, W. Va. "I've never seen the union in such bad shape. I want a man who says what he means and sticks to it. Miller can't do that."

Miller's term of office extends until 1982--which means that he would preside over negotiations on the next coal bargaining contract. Thousands of signatures have been collected on petitions for his recall, but procedures for removing a U.M.W. president are so complicated that the move is expected to collapse. As alternatives, some of Miller's most ardent foes are talking about calling a union convention to cut his $40,000 salary or strip him of his powers as president.

Still, despite the lingering bitterness among many miners, some operators thought that the coal settlement offered some grounds for optimism about the future of the coalfields. Said an industry executive: "The debacle we've been through has created a new atmosphere. Perhaps we've burned out 50 years of animosity."

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