Pitting Brother Against Brother

In Arizona's copper towns, a long strike tears families apart

The two couples were once the closest of friends. Buzz Cole, a truck driver for over 13 years at the Phelps Dodge Corp. copper mine in Morenci, Ariz., and his wife Beverly live in a small frame house on one side of Linden Street. On the other side, in a mirror-image home, are Joe Imrich, a crusher operator at the mine, and his wife Lolita. Beverly and Lolita were on the same bowling team and shared coffee every morning after their husbands left for work. For five years, the families, both with teen-age children, socialized and vacationed together and helped each other out in times of sickness.

Today the two couples no longer speak. Their friendship has been rent by a bitter three-month-old strike against Phelps Dodge that has divided friends and kin throughout Morenci, Clifton and a string of other copper company towns in southern Arizona.

A staunch union man, Cole stayed out on strike and on July 27 was fired for waving a hammer at a busload of strikebreakers. Imrich, a 21-year veteran, held out for 50 days, but on Aug. 21 he crossed the picket line and returned to work. The first time Beverly Cole saw Lolita Imrich after Joe went back, "I just looked at her and said, 'Lolita, you are now a scab,' " she told TIME Correspondent Robert C. Wurmstedt.

Strikes have punctuated life in Arizona's copper-mining towns for over a century. An epitaph on an old tombstone in Morenci reads, KILLED BY A SCAB. But this strike is different, redolent of the new bargaining climate in the U.S. that has put some unions on the defensive. In the past, when even the coalition of 13 unions at Phelps Dodge, led by the United Steelworkers of America, routinely went out on strike at the expiration of a three-year contract, the company would close down operations until a new deal had been negotiated. This year, racked by slumping world copper prices and a $78 million loss in the 18 months ending June 30, Phelps Dodge decided to keep its operations open, hire new workers and fire those who did not return to work. The unions claim the company is union busting, but officials of Phelps Dodge, the nation's second largest copper producer, after Kennecott Copper Corp., say they are merely trying to survive another year without shutting down, as they had to do from April to October last year.

Ordinarily, the rugged mountain towns of Morenci and Clifton are close-knit in an almost feudal way, drawn together by their common employer. Morenci (pop. 2,700), dominated by the huge white pit of the copper mine and the two monster smokestacks of the smelter, is the archetypal company town. Phelps Dodge, which has enjoyed a reputation as a generous employer, owns the water and electric utilities, the county hospital, the gas station, the motel, the bowling alley, the high school and a new Spanish-style shopping center featuring the Phelps Dodge Mercantile Co. (easy credit terms). Workers earn an average of $26,000 a year, and rent three-bedroom houses from the company for about $150 a month.

But now that cozy relationship has been ruptured, leaving deep wounds. One man lost his job to his twin brother, another to a first cousin. Mario Rodriguez watched his two brothers cross the line. "I don't talk to them," he says bitterly. "They are not my brothers any more." Since the strike began, the number of domestic problems--child abuse, for example--has shot up 30% in the area. Teenage friends who used to sit together at football games now go separate ways, as do many older colleagues. At Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Clifton, some striking parishioners will not participate in rites that include the deacon, Richard Gonzalez, because he crossed the line to go back to his job.

At the height of the strike this summer, 424 state troopers and 325 National Guardsmen poured into Morenci. Vacant houses were torched; rocks and rifle bullets were flying. More than 20 people have been arrested on strike-related charges. In Ajo, another Phelps Dodge town, a three-year-old girl was wounded in the brain when someone fired through the walls of her strikebreaking father's house.

In August, more than a thousand club-carrying, chain-wielding strikers threatened to shut down operations. But with little progress at the bargaining table and a successful recruiting effort by the company, the odds have shifted against the union. Although negotiations between the company and the 13-member bargaining team continued last week, strike leaders admitted privately that sympathy for their cause has shriveled and that they have lost the battle. "I have never seen such totally frustrated discouragement," says Father John Brent Bardon, the pastor of Sacred Heart Church.

Almost all the positions at the Morenci operations, which employ 1,400 workers, are filled, nearly 500 by returning employees. Many agree with Joe Imrich, who says, "My family and I like to eat. The bottom line is not whether you're a scab or not, but whether you're employed or not." In all, Phelps Dodge may fire some 1,400 workers as it replaces strikers. The company is readying houses in Morenci for the families of new workers. It has sent 60 eviction notices to "terminated" strikers like Buzz Cole. The Coles plan to move to Massachusetts to look for work, but they vow to return.

Even if they go, even if the strike is finally settled, the scars will probably remain a permanent feature of these communities. "It's brother against brother, and those lines will still be here 20 years from now," says Clifton Police Chief Edward Cramer. "At picnics, ball games and weddings, fights will start over this. It will never be the same." . This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.