Warrior Met Coal engaged in unfair labor practices by not providing the United Mine Workers of America with requested information during collective bargaining talks during what was Alabama’s longest strike.

That was the decision rendered by National Labor Relations Board Judge Melissa Oliverio in Washington, D.C. yesterday.

In a 68-page opinion, Oliverio ruled that Warrior Met violated labor law by failing to respond to the union’s information requests, and failing to provide, or unreasonably delaying responses to requests, some going back to March 2021.

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

“After a union demonstrates the relevancy of the requested information, the burden shifts to Respondent to establish that the information was not relevant, did not exist, or for some other valid and acceptable reason could be furnished to the requesting party,” Oliverio wrote. “When an employer bases its bargaining position on an asserted inability to pay, the union is entitled to request and review the employer’s financial records to assess the employer’s representations about its dire financial condition.”

Attempts to reach Warrior Met for comment were not immediately successful.

The UMWA praised the decision, saying it validated the union’s contention that Warrior Met was not bargaining in good faith.

“We appreciate this ruling, because it validates everything we have been saying about this company for more than two years now,” UMWA International President Cecil Roberts said. “This company caused this strike by not bargaining in good faith, it extended the strike for nearly two years by not bargaining in good faith, and it continues to violate the law today.”

About 250 miners returned to work at Warrior Met Coal on March 2, after the UMWA made an unconditional return to work offer earlier this year,

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.

“Warrior Met’s refusal to bargain in good faith has caused so much hardship to so many workers, families and communities for the last two years,” Roberts said. “We have been saying for more than two years now that we have been ready to sit down and bargain an agreement in good faith with Warrior Met. It should now be clear to all that the company never intended to do any such thing. Perhaps now, it finally will.”