The Nation - News from Aug. 20, 1989

United Mine Workers President Richard L. Trumka told 500 labor leaders attending a Virginia AFL-CIO conference in Norfolk that “the ‘90s will be a decade for labor, and we are not going to be denied.” He said working men and women must unite to win victories over giant corporations such as Pittston and Bell Atlantic. “In the ‘80s we sort of lost faith in ourselves. We listened to the bell tolling and thought it was for us,” said Trumka, whose union, mired in a bitter dispute with the Pittston Coal Group, has had about 1,700 miners in Virginia and West Virginia on strike since April 5.