As coal mine strike approaches ninth month, questions arise on fairness of law - Tuscaloosa Magazine

When Kris Mallory came to Brookwood in support the unionized coal miners as they prepared to go on strike, he expected there would be a fight.

But what Mallory said he didn’t see coming was for the fight, from his perspective, to be so unfair.

“The law only works one way, and that’s against us,” said Mallory, the special assistant to the president of the United Mine Workers of America.

Mallory, his fellow union members and the miners on strike at Warrior Met Coal in Brookwood believe they are being unfairly targeted – and, in some cases, ignored – by the law enforcement agencies who are on site to keep the peace between the strikers and the hired workers the coal company has brought on to replace them.

The striking miners told The Tuscaloosa News about multiple instances of attacks they say they have faced, from being threatened with guns to being struck by moving vehicles, which led to now criminal action against the people they described as attackers.

And while Mallory is open about the union’s intent to antagonize the hired workers – strikebreakers, to some; scabs to others – he and his fellow union members do not believe that words warrant a physical retaliation.

So, when the striking miners hit back by shattering windows or damaging the personal vehicles of the hired workers as they cross the union’s picket line, Mallory said that’s just the union’s response to prior attacks.

“We’ve been physically pushed to the point of retaliation,” Mallory said. “We don’t have an equal application and enforcement of the law.”

An attempt at fairness

Citing unfair labor practices, miners for the Brookwood-based coal company took to the picket line April 1 after an agreement between the United Mine Workers of America and Warrior Met Coal could not be reached.

A tentative deal was announced April 6, but its ratification, in accordance with the UMWA's constitution, was dependent on a vote of the union members.

This tentative agreement was rejected three days later, and the strike by more than 1,100 miners has carried on since.

Brookwood Police Chief Jimmy Sellers said that as the threatened strike date approached, he began to prepare himself and the rest of his eight-man department for what to expect when a mass of coal miners took to the picket line.

Perhaps most importantly, Sellers said he took a deep dive on federal labor law and the legal permissions extended to unionized workers who are striking during a labor dispute.

Part of this effort to grasp the rights of both the workers and the company came from Sellers’ commitment to his profession and town. Since the early 1990s, Sellers has worn a badge for the Brookwood Police Department, rising to the position of chief in 2014.

But coal mining is in Sellers’ blood.

He’s had family work and die in the mines, he said, and his father’s fabrication business was supported primarily through work and contracts awarded by the nearby mining companies.

So, he naturally bristles when accused of enforcing the law more favorably for one side of this dispute than the other.

“There’s no difference in how we handle things when a crime is committed,” Sellers said. “Our job is to deal with whatever comes down the line.

“I completely understand where these guys are coming from. But I also understand where the company is coming from.”

Sellers said Brookwood officers have made no on-site arrests of either a striker or worker and that he’s seen arrest warrants be denied by magistrates for complainants from both sides.

“It’s not just a one-way street,” Sellers said. “We’re sending facts and dealing with facts, and if a crime is committed, we’re going to respond to it and we’re going to deal with it accordingly.”

Tuscaloosa County Sheriff Ron Abernathy, whose deputies also are on scene to ensure that the disputes remain civil, agreed.

“We treat both parties the same,” Abernathy said. “If someone has committed a crime against anyone – whether they’re a union member or employee of that company – all they have to do is contact us and we will take a report as well as the proper action to ensure that person is prosecuted.”

Sellers and Abernathy both said the law enforcement officers they oversee aren’t on the scene to take sides.

Rather, they’re on hand to assist anyone who might need it – company worker or union man – while preventing violence from getting out of hand.

“If someone needs something done, we will,” Abernathy said. “Hopefully, some compromise can come out of this.

"Whenever you have a tense situation, there’s always potential for someone getting hurt, and that’s what our deputies don’t want to see happen.”

A town taken over

While sworn officers like Sellers and Abernathy maintain that the demands brought by the strike, which is soon to enter its ninth month, are part of the job, elected leaders can be a bit more direct.

Joe Barger, who is serving his first term as the mayor of Brookwood, agrees that, from what he’s seen, enforcement of the law has been applied equally to both the striking miners and strikebreakers.

But he also believes that much of the violence is being brought in to his town of 5,700.

“I don’t think our citizens would put our own citizens’ lives in danger,” Barger said. “But we strive to keep or streets and our community safe for all citizens who are community members and who are visitors, and we will continue to make that a priority.”

Barger is, however, clear that he’s ready for this strike to end. The town has been understanding of the struggle, he said, but the escalating violence is growing tiresome.

“They’re very upset,” Barger said of his constituents. “The crimes and behavior that are being committed, they’re scared.

“They want it to end, but they want it to end peacefully.”

An injunction imposed by a Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court judge could contribute to maintaining the peace, but the union still feels targeted by being forced to remain 300 feet away from mine entrances, a popular spot for picket lines.

“The Constitution of the United States protects American citizens’ rights to stand on the side of a road and call a scab a scab," said International President Cecil E. Roberts in condemning the injunction. "It protects their rights to peacefully assemble and air their grievances with an employer or any other person or entity. It protects their rights to seek redress from government. We intend to continue to exercise our rights."

The company, though, said the injunction is needed to protect the contracted workers as well as its property.

"Warrior Met Coal is condemning the recent increase in vandalism and violence by UMWA leadership and members as the strike continues." the company said in a statement last month. "In addition to interfering with the entrance and exit to our facilities, picketers have increased attacks on personal vehicles, property, and uninvolved community members near the company’s property.

"The UMWA picketers are engaging in behavior that is clearly in violation of both Alabama’s workers’ rights and the injunction granted by the Judge in Tuscaloosa County."

Warrior Met Coal, which focuses primarily on the mining of nonthermal metallurgical coal for use in the steel production process by manufacturers in Europe, South America and Asia, was created following the 2015 bankruptcy of Jim Walter Resources and its parent company, Walter Energy.

That year, Walter Energy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, indicating it had around $3 billion in debt with its major holdings in the state being the Jim Walter Resources underground coal mines in Brookwood as well as the rights to unmined coal fields elsewhere in Tuscaloosa and neighboring counties.

In January 2016, the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama approved the sale of Walter Energy to Warrior Met Coal, then operating as Coal Acquisition LLC, which was formed by Walter Energy’s senior creditors during the bankruptcy proceedings.

Warrior Met Coal went on to hire more than 1,000 miners in 18 months, including 350 hourly miners and 150 salaried employees for a new, $19 million portal facility on the company’s No. 7 mine. Last year, the company announced another 350 new jobs with an investment of more than $500 million with plans to construct and develop a new underground coal mining facility off Brandon School Road in north Tuscaloosa County.

Warrior Met recently reported a loss of about $35 million for last year compared to net income of $302 million for 2019.

But by the third quarter of fiscal 2021, it appeared the dark days of fiscal losses are in the past.

“During the third quarter, we were pleased to deliver our most profitable results since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, driven by the resiliency and efficiency of our operational base,” said Warrior Met Coal CEO Walt Scheller in a Nov. 2 news release. “We were ideally set to take advantage of the record high pricing we saw this quarter, enabling us to leverage the strong global economic recovery by increasing our average net selling prices and delivering strong production during the ongoing union strike.”

Warrior reported net income for the third quarter of 2021 of $38.4 million compared to a net loss of $14.4 million in the third quarter of 2020.

And while the strike has cost the company an estimated $13.9 million since it began, that level of loss doesn’t seem to be a concern in the latest corporate filings.

"While we continue to negotiate in good faith to reach a new union contract, the UMWA unfortunately remains on strike,” the CEO said. “During this period, we continued to execute successfully on our business continuity plans, allowing us to continue to meet the needs of our valued customers.

“Despite incurring costs associated with the strike, we have been able to manage our working capital and spending to deliver strong results in this market.”

For the union, though, they’re ready to see something more than verbal pledges.

To help the company recover, union workers agreed to pay decreases of between $6 and $8 an hour, a downgrade in health insurance and changes to their pension services, among other concessions.

Now, with the company reporting profits built on an increased demand for coal, the union believes its time their workers are made whole.

Stoking fear within a town, though, was never the goal.

“We’re talking about a company that was brought out of bankruptcy with these miners’ arms and backs,” Mallory said. “Our members, those who are on the picket line and those who are not, that’s their community, too. The last thing in the world we want is for people to be uncomfortable. For people to have fear, we don’t want that whatsoever. That is against what we believe in. That’s against our values as Americans and folks in any small town in the United States, and we don’t want that.”

Reach Jason Morton at [email protected].

source: https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/story/news/2021/11/28/mine-strike-approaches-9th-month-questions-arise-fairness-law/6264274001/

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