Strike-Torn Coal Area Becomes War Zone

Like a jaded soldier hunched in a foxhole, Ralph Axsom, dressed in fatigues and mud-splattered boots, watched calmly from a car as a ferocious thunderstorm lashed this tiny coal-mining community with wind, rain, hailstones and lightning that jagged across hills and sky.

But when a convoy of coal trucks roared down the road, Axsom, one of 1,300 striking coal miners here in deep southwest Virginia, bolted upright, shaking his fist and shouting, “Look! Scabs! Scabs! A convoy of scabs!”

It is war in Appalachia. Since April 5, the miners, dressed in camouflage fatigues and T- shirts, have lined roads leading to mining operations run by the Pittston Coal Group, braving the elements, harassing replacement workers, verbally savaging the company and waging a tough battle for the hearts of the public, including scheduling a fairgrounds rally today featuring the Rev. Jesse Jackson as the star attraction.

In turn, company-hired armed security forces intimidate strikers--roving the area in off-road vehicles, escorting non-union workers, videotaping pickets. A replacement truck driver brandished a pistol, police officials said Friday, and strikers said they had been roughed up by state police, hundreds of whom have been dispatched to the region by the governor.

1,100 Arrests

The patrolmen have made 1,100 arrests--122 for felonies such as throwing rocks at trucks. The rest are misdemeanors, and bail is high for both categories.

The strike by United Mine Workers of America has exacted other tolls that money cannot pay. It has roiled communities in several counties around here, distressed residents and, with both sides vowing not to give in, raised the specter of prolonged conflict that many fear will erupt violently and leave ugly scars. The futures of both the union and the company are at stake.

The state police helicopters that help escort truck convoys lend a weird air to the tense situation, said Hugh O’Donnell of Russell County. “It makes you feel like you’re in an occupied territory.” Many people have taken to calling their towns “Poland” or likening themselves to South Africans.

“It’s a scary time,” said Wallace Kiser, a printer in St. Paul, Va. “There are an awful lot of ill feelings. You don’t know what you can say without offending someone. It’s just a time to be very careful.”

Spring Has Arrived

It is such an unlikely war zone. Spring has dressed the mountains and hollows in pearly dogwoods and rosy redbud, and the poplar and locust trees are greening. Here, in the southwestern toe of Virginia, warm, wet days give way to cool, foggy-patched nights under brilliant stars.

The battle centers on a labor contract that expired Jan. 31, 1988, the miners having worked without a pact since then. The company wants, among other changes, an agreement to work the miners on Sunday, a cut in health benefits and the right to hire new workers when a new mine is opened.

“Profits over people” is the company philosophy, charged Marty Hudson, strike coordinator who is a national official of the UMW.

“We have a contract on the table that is fair, equitable and is in the best interest of all the parties,” retorted William J. Byrne Jr., director of financial public relations of the Pittston Co., the Greenwich, Conn.-based parent company of Pittston Coal. Its holdings also include Brinks Inc.

Health Benefits at Issue

The dispute involves a familiar clash of values, as U.S. companies claim they seek to remain competitive with foreign firms by cutting costs, while employees accuse the companies of bad faith and assert that they cannot afford to lose health benefits. On this issue, strikers say the company is trying to break the union, a charge company officials deny.

Outside the gates of the Appalachian Correctional Unit, one of several state facilities where arrested strikers are detained, Dorothy Ray, holding a vigil with hundreds of other miner families and carrying a sign reading “Free Our People,” said her husband, Donald, who worked 24 years in the pits, has been disabled for three years and must have a heart by-pass operation Thursday.

The company discontinued his health insurance when the contract expired last year, she said, adding that the family’s $545 monthly Social Security check is not enough to pay for massive health bills. Union officials say 1,500 pensioners, disabled employees and surviving spouses lost health benefits.

“I think they’re low-down, dirty s.o.b.s,” Ray said of company officials. “I think they’re as low as they can get.”

‘Credit Cards’ Expire

Byrne likened the lost health benefits to a charge account. “It’s like a credit card that expires,” he said. “Theirs expired.”

Words are not the only weapons in this war. Trucks and state police vehicles often pull up lame after running over “jack rocks,” nails or spikes twisted and welded together to resemble oversized toy jacks with sharp points on all tips.

And, miners, who wear the camouflage to show “solidarity,” say they are glad to see the rains because they will grow heavy woods to cover their “surveillance” of the mines. “Hit and run,” said one miner cryptically.

Entire communities have been pulled into the strike, and sometimes pulled apart.

Friday, about 100 high school students picketed the Village Motel in Castlewood because state troopers stay there. Passing motorists tooted horns and raised thumbs in support as students whooped and waved signs. The motel proprietors, longtime area residents, looked on, perplexed.

Nancy Milton, a desk clerk, said she has received numerous telephoned threats, adding: “It’s embarrassing to live in an area where something like this happens.”

Bail for Ex-Husband

A few miles away, in St. Paul, Lynn Jordan, a hairdresser who runs Lynn’s Shear Delite, said her father, brother and former husband had all been all arrested. To demonstrate her loyalty, she talked of plans to bail out her ex-husband and posted a “We Support the UMWA” sign in her window.

However, one man complained that the union had tried to coerce businesses into displaying signs. Strikers readily acknowledge that they boycott businesses--mostly fast food chains and grocery stores--that do not support them.

Back in the trenches, the solidarity is unbroken. The war has tightened an already tightly knit fraternity. Near mining operations, hundreds of men stand along the roads, others sit in trucks, and still more congregate in little shacks with signs on them like “Scabs--the Scum of the Coal Field.” They trade information and rumors and sometimes get arrested for throwing rocks at trucks.

On the road to Moss Plant No. 3, a sprawling plant where mined coal is cleaned, graded and shipped, Axsom stopped at a 5-by-5-foot wooden shack and greeted four camouflage-clad brethren: “Howdy, men, howdy!”

As the storm raged, they all went into the shack, which flew a small U.S. flag and sported a sign reading “Solidarity Forever.” Out of the driving storm, they whittled and talked about matters as old as the coal fields: the dirty conditions, their love of the work, the price they have paid for doing it.

“This is our life,” said Bob Street, 42, a 20-year veteran. “We’ve given them the better part of our lives and probably couldn’t pass a physical exam anywhere else.” Each man agreed.

Coal miners seem to take bad health for granted, and many in their 40s complain of serious ailments. But, they said, they also had assumed that once black lung or heart trouble forced them of the job, the company would stand by them.

They had struck before, the five men said, but this is the first time the company had brought in strikebreakers.

“They can’t run over us and work us the way you work dogs,” said Delmer Whisenhunt, a 22-year veteran at age 44.

Company Opposes ‘Socialism’

“The company gets painted as an ogre,” Byrne said in response. He asserts that strikers want “social-conscience contracts. We would not embrace socialism.”

Both sides face uncertain futures, economists say. The coal industry has pollution problems and faces competition from alternative fuels and foreign supplies. At the same time, unions are losing numbers and clout.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said that as of February, there were 148,000 coal employees, down from 259,000 a decade ago.

In an endangered industry, said a Labor Department economist, “Employers and workers tend to cooperate more. They know they’re in the same boat.”

Not here. No end to the strike is in sight. Various state officials are trying to mediate. Some miners fear Pittston will shift its assets to other holdings in what union officials call a “paper shuffle,” but they vow not to give in. A UMW $200-million strike fund provides their financial backup.

“It’s left up to them,” said Donald McCamey, secretary-treasurer of Local 2888. “We’re going to see it through. If they want to bankrupt this company, it’s up to them.”

Fears for Way of Life

As the strike wears on, the miners increasingly seem to believe that their battle is against change, embodied in the company, encroaching on a cherished past.

“They’ve taken away our way of life,” said Axsom, who was earning $600 a week. He now gets $200 in strike benefits for his family of two children, aged, 14 and 11, and his wife, who does not work outside the home. “They’re willing to suffer a little,” he said.

It is an old tradition. At 61, Axsom’s father retired with black lung disease after 43 years in the pits. He died eight years later.

Does he not think of getting out of the mines while he is still young?

“I’m 42 years old,” said Axsom. “I got 18 years at this company. It’s about too late to start over at 42.”