Word: trumka
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Barely two hours later, Richard Trumka, president of the United Mine Workers, emerged from a suite at the Sheraton Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., to announce tentative agreement on a new 40-month contract with the Bituminous Coal Operators' Association. Trumka called the deal "a giant step forward in this industry." If miners approve the contract, it will be the first time since 1964 that the U.M.W. has reached a new wage agreement without a strike...
...than the Auto-workers of rejecting contracts negotiated by their leaders and hitting the picket line. Five times in the past two decades, workers have gone on strike. In 1977-78 the miners were out for 111 days, and in 1981 the walkout lasted 72 days. But U.M.W. President Trumka this year was determined to break precedent. The coal miner turned lawyer wanted to win better salaries and better job security-without recourse to a strike. When the talks in Washington ended, he claimed to have secured a "totally non-concessionary" agreement. "It makes no giveback, no takeaways," said...
...incumbent charged that the four years Trumka had spent in the mines were not enough to make him eligible to run under U.M.W. rules, which call for five. Trumka claimed that the U.M.W. counted his time as a union lawyer toward the requirement. Church would not let go of the point. After his defeat, he said he would convene a U.M.W. commission to report to him before he leaves office on whether Trumka is eligible to succeed...
Church also campaigned on his record: a 37.5% pay increase over 40 months won in 1981, when other unions were making concessions. That raise, though, came only after a 72-day strike and what Trumka called "giveaways" in other areas, such as allowing the coal companies to pay less for the health care of miners. Trumka pounded away at the health issue with personal feeling: his father and the father of his bride-to-be, Barbara Vidovich, 35, suffer from black-lung disease...
...Trumka argued that Church had not been effective at organizing coal miners in Western states. The U.M.W, said Trumka, spent some $10 million to bring in a grand total of just 542 new members from the West, which is only 17% unionized. The U.M.W. members see nonunion coal as a major threat to their jobs, one reason that U.M.W. joblessness stands...