Underground Revolt

For three decades, until his retirement in 1960, John L. Lewis reigned as the uncrowned monarch of West Virginia, where coal is the fundament of kingdom. His heir as boss of the United Mine Workers is no seigneur. After six years in the job, W. A. ("Tony") Boyle is threatened by a rank-and-file revolt that would have been inconceivable in John L.'s day. The disaffection has seriously weakened Boyle's grip on the union, and could even cost him his job.

The U.M.W.'s 140,000 members are vociferously and increasingly critical of the union's cooperation with the coal industry. Their partnership has made U.S. coal miners by far the best-paid in the world (average: $7,000 a year) and created an industry so highly mechanized that American coal is cheaper than the domestic product in most of Europe --even in Newcastle. Yet cooperation can go too far. In 1968, the union was found to be conspiring with the Consolidation Coal Co. to create a monopoly in the soft-coal industry and was ordered to pay half of the $7,300,000 damages awarded by a federal District Court. The case is on appeal.

Too Close Ties. Miners are legitimately resentful of the union's niggardly pension system, which gives them only $115 a month after 20 hazardous years underground. Lewis has retired -- and Boyle will retire -- at full pay: $50,000 a year. Though miners are the nation's greatest sufferers from occupational ailments -- notably "black lung" or pneumoconiosis -- they get medical benefits only so long as they remain on the job. They argue, moreover, that the pension fund, fed by a royalty of 400 per ton of coal mined, ties the union too closely to the fortunes of the coal companies and tends to emphasize production rather than benefits for the mine workers. Last week West Virginia Representative Ken Hechler called for a congressional investigation of the fund, which in 1968 earned only $4,600,000 on a $180 million balance. U.M.W. members also chafe at the union's un democratic organization.

The issue that finally may unseat the U.M.W.'s leadership is mine safety. Coal miners, who won an 8%-a-year wage and fringe-benefit increase last October, argue that Boyle should have held out for a vigorous safety program on the part of the mine operators.

More than 300 miners were killed last year. Boyle did not exactly appease his dues payers with a graceless statement after Consolidation's supposedly "safe" Consol No. 9 turned into a gas-filled grave for 78 mine workers last November. The union boss philosophized that "as long as we mine coal there is always the inherent danger of explosion." Miners also complain about union inertia during this year's successful effort to get a bill through the West Virginia legislature compensating them for black lung, an irreversible condition that results from inhaling coal dust. Led by three coal-country physicians and joined by Congressman Ken Hechler and omni-purpose crusader Ralph Nader, most of the state's 43,000 miners walked off their jobs in a three-week wildcat strike and marched on the state capitol bearing a coffin.

Although the union leadership later claimed credit for the bill's passage, dissident members contend that aging Ray Humphreys, president of U.M.W.'s District 17, reflects the real attitude at the union's sumptuous Washington headquarters. Says Humphreys: "I guess we did let the sons of bitches get us behind the eight ball."

Hats in the Ring. Boyle's, most. serious competition for the union presidency is Elijah Wolford, 43, a miner who has switched to night work so he can spend his days campaigning. "The union," says Wolford, "has moved too far away from its original purpose--to protect the workingman."

So far, U.M.W. headquarters has responded to rank-and-file unrest with articles in the Mine Workers Journal that apply such standard invective as "finks" and "professional fakers" to the dissidents. Boyle has accused them of "trying to lead a fight against the union for their own political expediency." The U.M.W. president, who rarely visits the bleak mine towns where his members precariously earn their living, has decided that he should do some campaigning himself. U.M.W. headquarters announced this week that Boyle will tour West Virginia to tell the miners "what the union has done for them."

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