
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 20, 1993                   TAG: 9307200120
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CORAOPOLIS, PA.                                LENGTH: Medium

2 SIDES AGREE STRIKE MAY KILL COAL MINES

A 2-month-old strike involving the United Mine Workers and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association could ultimately destroy the industry, officials for both sides said Monday.

However, the two sides remain far apart, disagreeing on how to resolve the strike that has grown to 16,000 miners in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia.

"What is absolutely critical is that we do whatever we have to do to survive. Because if not, the market, those folks who want cheaper electric, those folks who are looking at coal cheaper than ours, will take our business away," BCOA President Joseph Brennan said.

"Unless we are prepared to deal with those issues, I don't care what the federal government does, I don't care what BCOA does, I don't care what the UMW does. We're on a track to oblivion," he said.

Brennan and UMW President Richard Trumka were among six people who testified Monday during a coalfields hearing by the U.S. House subcommittee on labor-management relations.

Job security has been the chief issue of the selective strike that began May 10. The union wants assurances it will have the right to a majority of jobs created when new mines open.

"They don't believe that after the production increase our members have gone through that we've earned anything but unemployment," Trumka said.

"That's a tremendous impediment to labor management and the cooperative process," he said. "It will be the millstone that kills the coal industry in the global economy if it's not changed."

The union has complained that coal operators have refused to honor contract agreements by creating subsidiaries and then claiming they do not fall under the BCOA, which accounts for about 30 percent of U.S.-mined coal.

"People open coal mines and people set up corporations for lots of reasons, not so that they can operate nonunion," Brennan said.

Rep. Austin Murphy, D-Pa., was skeptical, saying the BCOA might cease to exist if its only members were companies who did not include "spinoffs."

Trumka said the union would not return to the bargaining table until coal operators agreed that subsidiaries of its members should be included in the contract. He also criticized the association for its recent calls to continue negotiations as a "cute, interesting P.R. ploy."

by CNB