Mt. Eagle, miners want UMW Miller impeached

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Miller, UMW contract draw miners' ire
By James Branscome

LOGAN, WV - The new UMWA contract was strongly criticized this week by a mountain-wide organization of disabled coal miners and miners' widows who said its provisions feel far short of their expectations. Despite their dissatisfaction, the group refused to support a coalition of working miners from District 17 - Arnold Miller's home district in southern WVa.-- that is demanding that the UMW leader be impeached and the contract re-negotiated.
Meeting in Logan on Sundary, the Regional Black Lung Association, a five-state organization, made it clear tht it was less than pleased by the leadership of UMW President Miller, ,who propelled himself into the union office in 1972 principally through his role in the black lung movement that swept the coalfields in the past decade.

     Don Bryant, the President of the W.VA. Black Lung Association, said, "I don't agree with all that's in the contract because some of it damages our cause. I'm afraid that the damage has already been done and there is little that we can do about it, though."
     Bill Worthington, a Harlan Co., Ky., disabled miner who heads the regional organization, agreed and told the audience of some 150 people, "Arnold Miller wanted to disband the black lung organization, but I told him that it was not his to disband."
Worthington told a reporter later, "The union is trying to run the affairs of our organization by hiring our people and claiming credit for our work. Some people just like to pick their fruit up off the ground instead of climbing through the trees for it."
     The refusal of the black lung organization to turn the meeting into a discussion about impeaching Miller and re-negotiating the contract led to a walkout by Tom Hudson, the leader of a delegation of Kanawha County coal miners that is organizing. The Miner's Contract Fight Fund.
     On Saturday that group called a hastily arranged meeting at the same location to which to which more than 400 working coal more miners showed up. Apparently because of

confusion about dates, ,members of the black lung organization also attended, leading to a day-long verbal battle between the groups about whether Miller should be impeached, ignored, or simply implored to be more forceful in dealing with matter relating to disabled miners, widows, and pensioners.
     Hudson, a truck driver on a union organized strip job, accuses Miller of "deceit" in the handling of the 1974 contract and alleges that his campaign to get miners to ratify the contract "showed that there is no difference between the dictatorship of John L. Lewis and Tony Boyle and Arnold Miller's dictatorship."
     By telling miners that he had "gotten the whole apple," Miller "led the miners to think that he had given up on a better contract." Hudson said in an interview with the Eagle. "It's strange to e," he continued, "that a man who said we'll strike for six months if it took that, went around saying on TV that the union would be broke if we didn't get back to work."
     Hudson said his organization wanted an investigation into "why the Bargaining Council turned the contract down a second time and then suddenly reversed itself a few hours later. We want to know if there were any threats made and by whom." Hudson said the contract was "pushed down the throats of miners."
     Among a host of other differences the insurgents say they have with the contract and Miller are:
-- that the contract "discriminates" against disabled miners and pensioners by giving them lower benefit increases.
-- the elimination in the contract of an explicit right to strike over local issues.
-- a feeling that Miller is not displaying firm leadership over the union, leading to accusations that "he is being run by somebody." Hudson said. Also involved, explained one miner in the group, through at least one plug of Day's Work chewing tobacco, is the fact that Miller's style is leading miners to conclude things like "he ain't a very good talker when he gets on TV."
     Hudson, a member of the union for only three years, said that there would be another meeting of the dissidents this Saturday in Charleston. He also said that the group would be organizing meetings in each union district to push for re-opening contract negotiations The group will not call for a walkout to protest the contract, he said.

After the walkout by the coal miners at the meeting Sunday, the black lung organization devoted itself to preparing members to lobby Congress for changes this year in the federal black lung laws. Among the changes the group wants are:

-- eligibility for benefits to be based on 15 years in the mines for any miner of his widow instead of on complicated and often controversial medical tests.

-- permanent federal administration of the black lung benefits program which currently is set to expire in 1981.

-- a separate administrative organization funded from a special tax on coal to handle the benefits, which are presently administered by the Social Security Administration ad the Dept. of Labor.

-- definite time limitations for decisions by the government on black lung claims so that miners will not hve to wait years for a final decision.

-- allowing coal miners and their families to control local clinics, research programs, and claims boards presently dominated by doctors, lawyers, and other professionals.

Most of these recommendations are included in a bill sponsored for the organization by Rep. Murtha of Pennsylvania. That bill failed to get out of committee in the last Congress, however.

The organization was particularly critical of the administration of the black lung program by the U.S. Dept. of Labor. The regulations governing eligibility have been considerably stiffened by the Labor Dept, which handles claims for all miners who were still working as of July 1, 1973. All miners who retired before then must meet less stringent regulations administered by the Social Security Administration.

Willie Anderson, a disabled coal miner who works as a black lung counselor, said that he Labor Department's regulations "are five times harder than those of Social Security." Referring to figures showing that only about five out of each 100miners is now being certified for black lung benefits by the Labor Department, Anderson said, "Unless we get the Murtha bill passed, any man who applies now has had it. Wer're playing with a stacked deck."

Anderson said the 15-year sole eligibility requirement as particularly important fo miners' widows. "As it stnds ow, the widows are really getting the short end of the stick because either the hospitals do not keep recores on the men or are ot sympathetic to a widow tyring to establish a clai."

Both Anderson and Anise Floyd, a widow who is an officer of the W. VA orgnization, warned miners who have already received benefits not to drop out of the black lung organization. "Dopn't get too comofrtable," Anderson warned, "because the Social Security Administration has the righ at any time to make you re-qualify, and they can retract benefits if they claim you have improved."

Clinic programs funded by the ARC came in fror particular attack by James Kidd, the leader of the recently organized Ohio Black Lung Association. He complained that the state of Ohio had establishe dclinics in such a manner that "miners have to drive 250 miles to get to the main clinics which are in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Dayton instead of in the coalfields."

The ARC program has been a matter of controversy from its inception. W.Va. only recently obtained money for a aclinic program, even though former ARC Executive Director Alvin Arnett and then candidate and now Gov. Arch Moore of W.Va . pulled a mobile clinic in front of the Governor's mansion in W. VA. for a press conference in 1972. The mobile van then drove off, never to be seen again.

The hearings on the new black lung bill will begin in February, the organization said