Pittston Coal strike
| Date | April 5, 1989 – February 20, 1990 |
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| Location |
Primary locations:
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| Also known as | Pittston Strike of 1989 |
| Participants | UMWA, Pittston Coal Company, and Nonunion members |
| Outcome | Health and retirement benefits reinstated to miners. UMWA fined $64 million dollars in fines. Pittston Company lost 2/3 of production. |
Primary locations:
The Pittston Coal strike was a United States labor union action led by the United Mine Workers Union (UMWA) against the Pittston Coal Company, nationally headquartered in Pittston, Pennsylvania. The strike, which lasted from April 5, 1989 to February 20, 1990, resulted from Pittston's termination of health care benefits for approximately 1,500 retirees, widows, and disabled miners. The strikers also cited the refusal of the company to contribute to the benefit trust established in 1950 for miners who retired before 1974 and the refusal of the company to bargain in good faith as grounds for their action. The company cited declining coal prices, decreasing demand, and recession as its reason for limiting health care benefits.
The strike affected production in mines mostly in Virginia, but a few in West Virginia and Kentucky as well. Mine workers and their families engaged in acts of civil disobedience, work stoppage, protests, and rallies. At its peak in June 1989, the strike involved approximately 2,000 miners daily staying at Camp Solidarity with thousands more sending donations and holding wildcat walkouts that involved around 40,000 people. The participation of women in the labor action through the ad hoc formation of the Daughters of Mother Jones—reminiscent of the early days of union organization—proved an essential element of the successful strike.
During the 1980s, the real (inflation-adjusted) price of coal declined, putting economic pressure on coal companies. Many coal companies began employing non-union workers who would work for less money so that the coal company could maintain a profit.
By 1987 Pittston Coal had dropped from being the seventh largest coal operator in the United States to the 15th, and coal production was at an all-time low. The Pittston Coal Company had worked with the Bituminous Coal Operators (BCOA), which regulated health and retirement benefits offered to Pittston workers. The Pittston mines continued to lose money, though, and in 1987 the Pittston Coal Company terminated its contract with the BCOA to establish its own health and retirement benefit contract with the UMWA. Through collective bargaining, the UMWA and the Pittston Coal Company established two different retirement plans for the miners: one for those who retired before 1974 and one for those who retired after 1974, in the hopes that this would help the company gain a profit.
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