Guest Comment

United We Stand

Mine workers, locomotive engineers have more in common than just coal

by Cecil B. Roberts, President

United Mine Workers of America

 

BLE Editor's Note: Due to overwhelming request, we are publishing the text of Cecil Robert's speech to the delegates at the BLE's Seventh Quinquennial Convention in Miami Beach, Fla.

It is indeed an honor, a privilege for me as President of the United Mine Workers to come to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Convention. I consider your union a great union, with a long and proud history, and UMWA coal miners appreciate the fact that we have this relationship.

We mine it and you haul it. We depend on one another. United we stand and divided we fall, a wrong to one is a wrong to all, your fights, our fights.

This has been a difficult and trying couple of weeks for organized labor.

Eight pilots lost their lives on September the 11th and they belonged to ALPA. Twenty-five flight attendants lost their lives. Fifty SEIU members, at least, lost their lives, and some of the SEIU members were cleaning the windows on the World Trade Center at the time of the travesty of September 11th.

At the very top of the Twin Towers you may have noticed there is an antenna that basically is utilized for all of the cell phone service in the New York area. Two members of CWA were actually on that antenna when the first plane hit. So they were not only on the top of the World Trade Center, they were on the antenna sitting on top of the World Trade Center, and they radioed their supervisor - probably the first communications that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

Seventy-five members of the Laborers International Union lost their lives in the crashes. Forty members of AFSCME. Forty members of HERE that were serving breakfast on, I believe, the 106th floor of the World Trade Center lost their lives.

So as we come here this morning, we ask for your prayers and thoughts. But as organized labor, we are like the rest of the United States and, indeed, the world. We have a duty and an obligation to move forward, and as leaders, we must stand up when no one else is standing up and give guidance and direction.

As we leave here today, we all have some tasks of trying to comfort families in grief and trying to encourage our members to continue the good fight. And sometimes you wonder how you move forward in the face of that kind of a tragedy, and how the nation moves forward in that kind of a travesty of September the 11th.

So as we move forward, please understand that organized labor loves this country as no one else loves this country because we make this country go.

Our statistics as mine workers indicate that about 50 percent of the freight hauled in the United States is coal, and there's a lot of people who have been trying to stop the utilization, the burning of coal in this country. And we, of course, try to prevent this from happening.

But you've been a wonderful partner in all of this to allow us to keep our jobs. But, of course, if we keep our jobs, you're going to keep yours. Always remember, we mine it and you haul it. If you quit hauling it, we're in trouble. If we quit mining it, you're in trouble.

So all of us are linked together whether we like it or not. We have this bond, and we should fight together, and we should stand together and we ought to be proud to stand together. I know I'm proud to stand with you today.

And I want to say thank you for standing with us in 1978, when we were on a 111-day strike nationwide; '81, 71-day strike; '84, a massive strike lasted four and a half years, by the way. You've been with us every step of the way, and United Mine Workers of America cares deeply about those folks in the BLE.

I believe we should work in coalition together. The UMWA and the BLE have so many common interests. I believe all of us standing together, believing in that principle of united we stand and divided we fall, a wrong to one is a wrong to all, that allows the American Labor Movement to shine light into dark places. We can bring hope where there is no hope, and we can keep hope alive where there is hope.

And I'm not talking about a revolution, but I'm probably talking about a rapid evolution. We need it in the American Labor Movement. And if someone treads on one of us, someone treads on the BLE, someone treads on the mine workers, we have total control of the coal and energy in the U.S. As I said, we mine it and you haul it.

In 1978, the government came down on us, and the Taft-Hartley Act was imposed on the United Mine Workers of America. We ignored it and we said Taft can load it and Hartley can haul it.

I believe working in coalition together we can do some things. Sometimes in organized labor it seems to me we're looking for things that divide us as opposed to things that unite us, and not to the common agenda for all working class people.

Sometimes we get to thinking we're just coal miners, and sometimes we get to thinking we're just locomotive engineers, but we're working class people, number one, and we ought to act like them and fight like them together. And we ought to have an agenda. What should be on this agenda?

I don't believe anyone can disagree with this agenda. Number one, the American Labor Movement has stood proudly against any form of discrimination since its inception. We should oppose discrimination because male or female, red, yellow, black or white, we're all precious in God's sight.

We ought to stand for a living wage for every American and, indeed, every Canadian. When I am talking about a living wage, I didn't say minimum wage. You ought to be concerned about your Brothers and you Sisters and your friends and your neighbors.

Great oil has been produced over the last 40 or 50 years. CEOs' salaries have gone up probably 500 percent. I guarantee your salary hasn't gone up 500 percent.

Democrats and Republicans both patted themselves on the back when they ended welfare as we know it. They kind of forgot to end poverty as we know it. We've got people going to work everyday in the U.S. and, in Canada, and if you work for a living in this country, you ought to get paid a decent wage and not to live in poverty, and that's sharing the wealth the way it should be.

Let me tell you what else we think we ought to stand for. We ought to stand for real labor law reform, and I know that you're covered by a different law than we are. But let me tell you something, it is almost the same law because your law doesn't work, either. We ought to change it.

The main thing we need to do is change the law so that replacement workers or scabs can't be used when we're on strike trying to protect our rights.

Let me explain to you how the system works. If you're on strike and you were making $16 an hour, using a hypothetical figure, someone comes along and says, "I'll take your job and I'll work for $14." Those scabs ought to look out because there's a $10 crowd looking for them. We're just driving down the price of our labor.

And let me tell you something, we got in trouble when Ronald Reagan fired all of those PATCO workers. We said, well, that's not us. Organized labor should have stood up back when that happened and said you can't do that to anyone in organized labor. United we stand, divided we fall. Wrong to one is a wrong to all and shut down the country.

And I know we've got Canadian Delegates here because I know we have Canadian members. But in the United States we don't have it as well as they do in Canada when it comes to health care.

In the United States of America we still have over 40 million people with no health care. And every time we go to the bargaining table in the mine workers we've got to hear that song and dance about how much health care costs, and it's true.

But think about all of those Americans without health care, and this is becoming a greater problem everyday.

But you know every time we talk about changing this system where if you're born in America you get health care provided by the government, someone comes along, they get on Meet the Press and ABC and CBS and they tell us how wrong we are to want health care for everybody.

You know when the President of the United States, whether he is a Democrat or Republican, gets sick? You know who pays for that? You do. Anybody in Congress gets sick, whether it is House or Senate, you know who pays for that? You do.

Governor of any state in the Union gets sick, you know who pays for that? You do. Any of their staff members get sick, you know who pays for that? You do. Supreme Court of the United States, they get sick, you know who pays for that? You do.

Isn't it amazing that they can have national health care - but someone operating a train, mining coal, or driving a truck - they can't have it.

I've got an answer for this. Whatever they got up there in Washington, we'll take it down here in the coal fields, down here in Florida, we'll take it all across the country. Good enough for them, good enough for us.

Now, how do you get the plan? I'm a firm believer that we're too comfortable. I'm going to make somebody mad here. I'm just like a minister. I think you got to speak the truth.

We need to get up off our collective, excuse me, our collective asses and do something here, and I'm talking about all of us. You know, when people move, presidents move. When the people move, Congress moves. When the people move, governments change their thinking.

You got to get up. You got to start marching. People look at you and they say you all should not be out there marching. Jesus marched. Martin Luther King marched. John L. Lewis marched and Moses marched.

And I got some news for you. Moses didn't send Pharaoh no fax or e-mail, or phone up Pharaoh. Moses went to see Pharaoh and we as organized labor need to get up and start marching and start demonstrating and go see Pharaoh wherever he can be found.

And I know this will work. We've seen it work. We can change our mind. John L. Lewis said we need labor law. He changed his mind.

But when you change your mind, you got to change everybody's mind. And you need to read history because it just doesn't fall from the sky. But there's been some recent success in this. All of us got together, all of organized labor a few years ago, and we built a train.

Didn't you know you built a train? You locomotive engineers know all about building trains. We built a big old train. We built a midnight train to Georgia and we put Newt Gingrich's big fat butt on that train and hauled him out of Georgia.

The UMWA and the BLE, coal miners and locomotive engineers stand together, fight together, rally together, march together, and we'll be just like a tree standing in water, we shall not be moved.

United we stand, divided we fall. A wrong to one is a wrong to all. God bless all of you.

CECIL E. ROBERTS JR., a sixth-generation coal miner, became president of the United Mine Workers (UMWA) of America on October 22, 1995, having served as vice president of the union since December 1982. Roberts succeeded Richard L. Trumka, who was elected secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO.

Roberts, and one of the labor movement's most stirring orators, began his career as a mine worker in 1971 after college and military service in Vietnam. He began his elected service to the UMWA one year later in 1972. On November 9, 1982, Roberts was elected vice president of the UMWA.

In December 1995, Roberts assumed the UMWA presidency, following Richard Trumka's resignation to become the AFL-CIO's new secretary-treasurer. He was re-elected to that position

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© 2001 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers