Generals of Shrinking Armies

By John S. DeMott

The beleaguered mineworkers and auto workers pick new leaders

Unemployment has cut a painful gash through coal mining and automobile production. One consequence is that union membership in those basic American industries has eroded, turning leaders of both the United Mine Workers and the United Auto Workers into generals of shrinking armies. But competition to head the unions is still sharp. That showed up last week as the miners elected a new president and the U.A.W. nominated a successor to Douglas A. Fraser, who retires next year.

By an unexpectedly large 2-to-1 sweep in a heavy turnout, unionized coal miners elected Richard L. (Rich) Trumka, 33, a lawyer and third-generation miner, to head the 220,000-member U.M.W. (peak membership in 1942: 595,000). That will make Trumka the youngest leader of a major labor union in the U.S. when he takes office next month. He defeated Incumbent Sam M. Church Jr., 46, who was appointed to the job in 1979, when Arnold Miller resigned because of his health.

Possessing a bachelor's degree from Penn State and a law degree from Villanova, Trumka also becomes the best-educated U.M.W. leader in history, a fact he did not try to hide during the campaign. Overzealous aides even claimed that Trumka is a member of Phi Beta Kappa; they later admitted he is not. Said one Church worker: "Miners don't give a damn whether their president is a Phi Beta Kappa or not."

The election showed, though, that miners have changed since the fire-and-brimstone days of John L. Lewis. More than half are under 40. Many have gone to college, then back to the mines for the high wages of up to $100 a day. They approved of Trumka's style. He campaigned in a three-piece suit, while the tobacco-chewing Church stumped in coveralls.

The incumbent charged that the four years Trumka had spent in the mines were not enough to make him eligible to run under U.M.W. rules, which call for five. Trumka claimed that the U.M.W. counted his time as a union lawyer toward the requirement. Church would not let go of the point. After his defeat, he said he would convene a U.M.W. commission to report to him before he leaves office on whether Trumka is eligible to succeed him.

Church also campaigned on his record: a 37.5% pay increase over 40 months won in 1981, when other unions were making concessions. That raise, though, came only after a 72-day strike and what Trumka called "giveaways" in other areas, such as allowing the coal companies to pay less for the health care of miners. Trumka pounded away at the health issue with personal feeling: his father and the father of his bride-to-be, Barbara Vidovich, 35, suffer from black-lung disease.

Trumka argued that Church had not been effective at organizing coal miners in Western states. The U.M.W, said Trumka, spent some $10 million to bring in a grand total of just 542 new members from the West, which is only 17% unionized. The U.M.W. members see nonunion coal as a major threat to their jobs, one reason that U.M.W. joblessness stands at 41,000.

Last Friday in Dearborn, Mich., the U.A.W's 26-member international executive board and 350-member steering committee picked a softspoken, deliberate man as Fraser's replacement. He is Union Vice President Owen Bieber, 52, director of the U.A.W's General Motors department. Bieber's nomination is subject only to ratification at the U.A.W's convention in May, which is certain. Lobbying among union officers for the nomination began in earnest in September among Bieber, Secretary-Treasurer Raymond Majerus, 58, and Donald Ephlin, 57, also a vice president and the head of the union's Ford department.

Troubles over Chrysler plagued the last years of Fraser's regime, which began in 1977, and also led to his becoming a Chrysler director, the only union officer on the board of a U.S. corporation. He took a leave of absence from that job last week, though, after 9,000 Canadian Chrysler workers went on strike, forcing initial layoffs of more than 4,500 of their U.S. counterparts. Fraser said he wanted to avoid any perception of conflict of interest over his dual role as board member and union president.

Bieber negotiated this year's GM contract, which was coolly received by the union and barely squeaked through the ratification process. The son of a U.A.W. member, Bieber has been active in union politics since he dropped out of Grand Rapids Catholic Central High School in the mid-'40s. He will be the first U.A.W. president who was not a member of Walter P. Reuther's rough-and-tumble coterie that forged and consolidated the union back in the 1930s and '40s.

Bieber, a hulking man (6 ft. 5 in., 247 lbs.), describes himself as "militant when the occasion calls for it." But like Fraser, he recognizes the necessity for making U.S. auto companies competitive with Japan. Neither the companies nor the union are the growth businesses they once were. The U.A.W's membership now stands at 1.2 million, down from its peak of 1.5 million in 1979.

--By John S. DeMott. Reported by Barbara B. Dolan/Detroit

With reporting by Barbara B. Dolan

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