Sporadic Gunfire Heats Up Wildcat Coal Mine Strikes

Sporadic gunfire Wednesday in the coal fields of Virginia and West Virginia ended a lull in wildcat walkouts by at least 37,000 miners in eight states who ignored a federal judge’s order to refrain from strike activities.

Hundreds of United Mine Workers members from six states clogged Virginia roads used by coal truckers for Pittston Coal Group Inc., the company at the heart of the wildcat sympathy strikes.

Four coal trucks were peppered with gunfire in West Virginia and Virginia, police said. No injuries were reported and no arrests were made.

Gov. Gaston Caperton, who has tried to bring Pittston and the United Mine Workers together for talks, reiterated that state police would investigate all reported violence and make arrests when possible.

“The use of criminal activity by either side of the conflict in our coal field is an intolerable response to labor-management problems,” he said.

At least 37,000 union miners remained on strike Wednesday. At one point, the wildcat walkouts included 46,000 miners in Missouri, West Virginia, Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. Many miners in Missouri and Virginia have gone back to work.

The wildcat walkouts are in support of 1,900 UMW members who are on strike against Pittston in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky in a contract dispute.

In Greenwich, Conn., outside the headquarters of the Pittston Co.--Pittston Coal Group’s parent company--the UMW held a memorial Wednesday. About 350 miners, wives and children from Virginia and Pennsylvania brought 350 small, white-painted, wooden crosses bearing the names of coal miners killed or injured in mine accidents.

The UMW said it would encourage the wildcat strikers to comply with U.S. District Judge Dennis Knapp’s order to refrain from strike activities.

In addition to gunfire, two trucks were hit Wednesday in the Montgomery area, southeast of Charleston, by steel balls fired from a slingshot, state police said.

In southwestern Virginia, UMW members from six states continued to create traffic jams on coal-hauling roads Wednesday despite facing daily fines of $120,000 from a federal judge. Virginia state police wrote 118 tickets for impeding traffic Tuesday, only 12 of them to Virginia drivers. The rest were issued to drivers from Indiana, West Virginia, Alabama, Illinois and Pennsylvania.