Friends, I am a life-long strong unionist, proud to have been a UMWA underground coal miner for more than 13 years (1979-92), and now proud to be a member of the AFT. Part of being a strong union member is fighting to have our unions do the right things. I have received two robo-calls from UMWA president Cecil Roberts building a rally the UMWA is planning for Pittsburgh, which I think is self-destructive to that important union. I cant in good conscience be silent as my union rushes down a suicidal path, so I just posted this comment on the UMWA Facebook page. Sharing this here with you because I believe this issue is important, and because I want to see my union(s) be strong and supported. I wrote: Brothers and sisters, I am proud to be a UMWA member since 1979; still pay dues even though I have been out of the mines since a 1992 layoff (and Im now an active member of the American Federation of Teachers, teaching middle school in Pittsburgh). I strongly urge our union to take a different tact on environmental issues. We should be fighting for all of the people in the coalfields, and fracking fields, and everywhere, whose lives and world are so severely compromised by the destructiveness of the coal operators and oil and gas companies. We should be in the front lines of the fight for our mountains and rivers and air and very lives, as we were as a strong union in the fight against nuclear power in the 1980s. I believe we should build on our powerful history of fighting for safety underground, and carry that fight forward for the very land and air and water our children and their childrens children deserve to inherit. The UMWA can be a leader. This proposed rally pits us against the very people we should be working alongside -- the women and men of the other unions and workplaces across this country and world who are the people like us who suffer from the destructiveness of big coal and big oil and big gas (and big anti-public-schools campaigners). Please reconsider. wvpublic.org/post/umwa-plans-rally-protest-proposed-epa-regs
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 16:05:21 +0000