Throughout the nearly two-year strike by the United Mine Workers of America against Warrior Met Coal, both sides shared very little information publicly, only occasionally lifting the veil through court documents or public statements.

A decision by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board last week shed some light on the tactics of both sides in what eventually became what is believed to be Alabama’s longest strike.

The regional director of the National Labor Relations Board blocked a vote to decertify the United Mine Workers of America at Alabama’s Warrior Met Coal. Region 10 Director Lisa Henderson issued a 16-page ruling Thursday, stating that “the pending unfair labor practices tainted the atmosphere in which the employees signed the decertification petition.”

But, in the process of laying out her reasoning for the decision, Henderson recapped testimony from union members and company employees that laid out the events leading up to, and unfolding during, the strike.

About 1,100 union members walked off the job back on April 1, 2021 in a strike for better pay and benefits that they say were part of an earlier contract negotiated under Warrior Met’s corporate predecessor.

According to the union, concessions to keep the company afloat back in 2016 were not restored in subsequent contract offers.

In Henderson’s decision, she states the union estimated that, prior to the strike, the parties met and bargained via Zoom about 40 times, beginning in early 2021. There were up to 1,000 union employees in the company, covered by four different local unions.

Just prior to the strike, the union submitted a six-page information request to the company, seeking almost 300 individual pieces of information.

Warrior Met’s not providing the UMWA with that requested information during collective bargaining talks is one reason why an NLRB judge ruled back in June that the company engaged in unfair labor practices.

The information was necessary, Judge Melissa Oliverio said, to determine whether the company “was truly able to pay the Union’s demands.”

The talks break down

One of the main issues in talks was the percentage of contract workers allowed in the mines. The expired contract allowed up to 25 percent, and the union was attempting to negotiate that number down.

Pay and benefits also factored heavily in the decision to strike. According to the union, miners lost about $6 an hour under the 2016 contract – a significant bite, not even factoring in overtime.

In the tentative offer, the union said the company proposed a $1.50 raise over five years. They also wanted concessions on 401(k) and pension plans, mandatory shifts, and policies for time off.

Union members voted overwhelmingly – by 95% – to reject a tentative offer made a few weeks into the walkout. That offer stated that, after two years, the contractor cap would be lowered to 20 percent.

According to testimony in a hearing by Union Representative James Blankenship, the union negotiators accepted the tentative offer, even without receiving the requested information, in an effort to end the strike quickly.

However, at a subsequent information session with union members, “officials only got through the first few pages before the membership walked out,” Henderson wrote.

Blankenship told members asking if they should vote in favor of the contract to read it and “vote their conscience.”

Bargaining ground rules stated the union would fully support any tentative agreement.

According to Henderson, “Union officials made little, if any, attempt to advocate for ratification, and some local union officials went so far as to record a video in which they lit a copy of the contract on fire.”

After that, the requested information, Henderson wrote, still was not forthcoming, and union members “did not seem to understand that there was no way for the Union to compel the Employer to comply with the information request other than filing (NLRB) charges.”

“Members were also frustrated with the Union because they could not ‘go in there and get what the members wanted’ with regards to other matters such as wage increases and improvements in working conditions,” she wrote.

An estimated 150 union members crossed the picket line during the nearly two-year fight.

In 2022, Warrior Met said it had put forward eight full written proposals for a new contract since the beginning of the strike, and offered a 10% to 12% raise.

Union leaders countered that the eight proposals were virtually indistinguishable from the tentative agreement voted down.

Turning ‘a blind eye’

In the first year of the strike, action along the picket lines flared into violence.

In May 2021, nearly a dozen miners were arrested during a protest outside a mine. Miners the following month reported at least three instances of violence along picket lines. The UMWA released videos of incidents where the union said members were struck by vehicles crossing the picket line.

Then the Highway Patrol Division of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency was used to escort workers past the line.

Warrior Met said in a statement that the level of violence taking place had “reached a dangerous level.” Then in October 2021, a Tuscaloosa County circuit judge issued a restraining order against picket line activity at 12 different locations owned by Warrior Met Coal.

According to Henderson’s decision, it was this period that led in part to some workers petitioning to decertify the union.

“Witnesses testified that some employees felt that the Union condoned or at least turned a blind eye to picket line misconduct,” she wrote.

Testimony at a hearing in May documented this period.

Tony Morgan, a day shift operator at the No. 7 East mine, testified that he initiated the decertification petition after seven years of being called a “scab” because he didn’t join the union. Once the strike began, the situation deteriorated.

“Each time, strikers called him things like ‘scab,’ ‘son of a bitch,’ and ‘piece of shit.’ He testified that he had to kick jack rocks out of the road to avoid getting flat tires, and he witnessed strikers who held baseball bats that had picket signs attached to them to conceal the bats,” Henderson wrote.

Other miners testified to similar experiences.

One union member said he went back to work after five-and-a-half months when he was denied strike pay. He was called a “traitor.” One worker said he had three flat tires from picketing activity.

Beth Harmon, a female miner, said she rode school buses, outfitted with metal bars, to cross the picket line in order to work.

She was called a “bitch whore,” which she found “especially unnerving because, she testified, it is already difficult being a female in the industry.”

Samuel Fields, a day shift operator at the No. 7 East mine, said he had been a union member but withdrew because of the way members treated contractors. The violence of the picket line was a daily source of conversation among workers.

“On at least one occasion, workers were unable to leave at the end of their shift because strikers parked rental cars to block the mine entrances and pulled the valve stems out of the tires so that the cars had to be towed out of the way,” Henderson wrote.

“This process took four or five hours, during which time hundreds of workers, including managers, supervisors, contractors and hourly employees were unable to leave.”

Because of the lingering animosity, Morgan said it took him only four to five days to get the required number of signatures among employees.

Last September, the NLRB issued a “make-whole” damage assessment to the UMWA totaling $435,000, related to the picketing period.

This was after the board sent an earlier, detailed list of damages totaling more than $13.3 million dollars.

More than $12.8 million of that amount were costs to the company, such as increased security, increased labor, barriers, security cameras, and “lost revenues for unmined coal.” Other items included “vehicle damage.”

The damages came as the result of a settlement agreement the union entered in order to save “members and families from days of hostile questioning by company lawyers,” the UMWA stated at the time.

‘More strict and less clear’

In October 2021, the company “floated” the idea that some unnamed strikers might not be eligible to return to work for unspecified reasons.

Word of this got back to union members, with about 100 “scared because they did not know what caused strikers to be put on the list.”

“As a result, they were reluctant to come to the picket lines,” Henderson wrote.

The company gave more specific information the following August, eventually naming about 41 employees it determined were involved in threats or acts of violence on the picket line, among other activities. The union, Henderson said, never issued any fines for misconduct.

At a hearing, Jeff Fleenor, a heavy equipment operator at Mine 4, said that “as time went on… people felt like their rights as picketers were being stripped and the standards for what could trigger adverse consequences were becoming more strict and less clear.”

When the union issued its unconditional return to work offer earlier this year, those 41 employees were not allowed to return.

The union filed unfair labor practices claims on those members. The NLRB has yet to rule on these claims.

DeAndre Dunn, a day shift worker at the No. 4 mine for six years, told the NLRB he didn’t think the 41 members should be allowed to return to work.

“He testified that he did not want to be working underground in a dangerous environment with people who could do the things that they did on the picket line,” the decision reads.

A history of animosity

In June, Warrior Met said about 250 miners returned to work, while Henderson said union members put the number at closer to 100.

The larger number might include those union members who crossed the picket line prior to the unconditional return.

When the miners came back, the company unilaterally increased wages by $1 per hour in each job classification, lowered the deductible and decreased the maximum out-of-pocket and prescription drug out-of-pocket costs, according to Henderson.

The company also went from a three-shift schedule to two 12-hour shifts during the strike, though it did this without notifying the union.

The company and the union have not met for any collective bargaining sessions since the return to work.

Henderson, in reaching her decision, said the company’s “pending unfair labor practices tainted the atmosphere” which contributed to the decertification petition.

“I am aware that there has been a history of animosity between Union members and non-members pre-dating the strike,” she wrote.

“The conduct of some employees during the strike did nothing to heal the rift between those groups. Likewise, Union officials are not blameless in the matter… It also stands to reason that striking employees would not be pleased with the Union when, after a prolonged strike, they returned to work without a collective-bargaining agreement.”

However, Warrior Met’s refusal to provide the information requested by the union, she said, had a “negative impact on the Union’s ability to effectively negotiate on behalf of the bargaining unit, which contributed to employee disaffection.”