Nation: Once Again, a Coal Agreement

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But union leaders were unsure whether miners would accept it

"Here we go again," sighed Frank Vahaly, 36, a coal miner in Bentleyville, Pa. His skepticism was echoed throughout the strikebound coal fields last week as negotiators for the miners and operators reached yet another tentative contract agreement—the third in the 14-week coal strike.

The question was: Go where? Once again the strike had turned into a cliffhanger, with the nation waiting to learn whether the 165,000 members of the United Mine Workers of America would vote this Friday to ratify the pact, which contains more generous provisions for health care and pension benefits, or send their negotiators back to the bargaining table.

Union and management negotiators did their best to give the proposed contract an optimistic send-off at a press conference in Washington's Capital Hilton Hotel. Said Nicholas Camicia, chief negotiator for the Bituminous Coal Operators' Association: "We think we have a package that will be very good for the union, very good for the country and [will] get our mines back to work." Added U.M.W. President Arnold Miller: "It's a pretty good contract."

Next day, the U.M.W.'s bargaining council voted for the pact by 22 to 17. The vote was closer than expected, but not close enough to dash union leaders' hopes that the contract would be ratified by the U.M.W. rank and file. In fact, although many miners were wary of the new agreement at first, at week's end they seemed to regard it as better than its two predeces sors. (The first was rejected by the bargaining council on Feb. 10; the second was voted down 2 to 1 by the miners on March 5.) Still, many local leaders cautiously gave the latest contract proposal only a fifty-fifty chance of being approved.

Negotiators for the U.M.W. and coal operators initialed the new contract only eight days after the Carter Administration had obtained a temporary restraining order under the Taft-Hartley Act to get the striking miners back to work. As expected, nearly all of the miners ignored the order and stayed home. Of the 900 union mines closed by the strike, only a handful reopened. The Administration actually made little effort to enforce the order. Explained a Justice Department official: "We're trying not to rock the boat." Behind the scenes, however, mediators from the Department of Labor were pressuring operators and union representatives to shift the deadlocked national negotiations down to the local level. Both sides reacted angrily to the idea. Said a U.M.W. leader: "We resented it deeply. They were going to destroy national collective bargaining."

The operators were equally upset. After meeting with the mediators, Camicia and Stonie Barker Jr., president of the Island Creek Coal Co., were driving back to their office when Barker suddenly suggested: "Why don't we go over and talk to those fellows ourselves?" Soon, they were at the gray stone U.M.W. headquarters. Camicia and Barker first demanded a new union negotiating team. The union bargainers refused. Unfazed, Camicia and Barker shifted the conversation to how negotiators for both sides should deal with the issues that still divided them. The conversation went so well that they decided to resume formal bargaining the next morning.