WAYNESBURG, Pa. (AP) — Nearly 3,000 union mine workers rallied today in southwestern Pennsylvania, the first major gathering of union members outside the states where lawmakers are already battling over collective bargaining rights.
Despite the passage of laws aimed at restricting collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin and Ohio, those at Friday's event said it was not too late to prevent similar laws in other states.
"The pendulum is swinging the other way," said Regis Bozek, 57, of Masontown, Pa., who has worked at Alpha Natural Resources' Cumberland coal mine for 33 years. "What people don't realize is when we're gone, the good wages are gone. My kids will never live as good as our generation did."
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Bozek hoped it was not too late to stymie efforts in other states.
"That's why we're all here today," he said. "We've got to try."
About 3,000 members of the United Mine Workers of America, their families and other supporters from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia attended the We Are One Solidarity March and Rally in Waynesburg. They began walking along state Route 21, chanting, "This is what democracy looks like!" and carrying camouflage signs with "We Are One" and "The Fight Is Just Starting" in bright yellow letters.
It was the first major labor rally outside the states where lawmakers are already battling over collective bargaining rights, but UMWA President Cecil Roberts said it won't be the last.
In Wisconsin, Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed legislation last month stripping nearly all collective bargaining rights from most state employees.
On Wednesday, Ohio lawmakers passed a bill that was in some ways tougher than Wisconsin's and sent it to the governor, extending restrictions to police officers and firefighters, as well as teachers, nurses and a host of other government personnel. Gov. Jon Kasich signed it into law Thursday.
It allows unions to negotiate wages but not health care, sick time or pension benefits. It gets rid of automatic pay increases and replaces them with merit raises or performance pay. Workers would also be banned from striking.
Other efforts to limit union powers are under way in Florida, Iowa, Tennessee, Indiana and more states with Republicans in charge.
But the miners have other goals in mind, too. The UMW is about to begin negotiations on a new nationwide coal contract to replace the one expiring Dec. 31.
The union is also publicly pressing Virginia-based Alpha Natural Resources to open two new coal mines in western Pennsylvania and make them union operations.
At the height of labor's influence in the 1950s, union membership peaked at about one of every three workers, but unions have since fought steady erosion. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says union membership last year fell to just less than 12 percent of all workers, and just less than 7 percent in the private sector.
In 2009, for the first time, more union members were working for federal, state and local governments than in the private sector.
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