Miners Awaiting Pact Details Stay on Picket Line

Striking Pittston Co. miners stayed on the picket lines Tuesday, waiting to learn details of a tentative agreement to end a nine-month walkout that has cost the union and company millions of dollars.

The contents of the settlement were not being disclosed as United Mine Workers officials scrambled to get printed copies of the pact.

“There’s a lot of concerns and questions being asked about the contents of the contract,” said Charles Dixon, a UMW international executive board member from District 30, based in Pikeville, Ky.

“There are secrets and then there are secrets,” he said. “Things are real hush-hush on the contents of the Pittston agreement.”

The agreement was announced Monday at a news conference held by Labor Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole in Washington.

Union spokesman John Duray said that because the settlement came over a holiday, it has slowed procedures, such as getting the contract printed.

“All that process is starting today,” he said Tuesday. “We’re a little behind on the curve.”

The sometimes-violent strike began April 5 and affected 1,700 Pittston miners in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.

At one point, more than 46,000 miners in nearly a dozen states staged a wildcat sympathy strike.

A key issue was Pittston’s attempt to end its contributions to the union’s industry-wide retirement fund.

Pittston’s coal subsidiary, Pittston Coal Group Inc., said it could not afford to continue payments to the fund, which covers 130,000 pensioners who retired between 1947 and 1976.

The union insisted on continued contributions to the fund, fearing that if Pittston quit paying it would lead to departures by other coal companies.

Union officials will meet with the funds’ trustees before the agreement is voted on by striking miners, Duray said.

The union and Pittston also want to resolve more than $64 million in fines levied by state and federal courts against the union during the strike.

U.S. District Judge Glen Williams said he expects the two sides to appear before him this week, but nothing had been scheduled Tuesday. Williams has fined the union nearly $1 million for disrupting Pittston’s operations.