The historic nearly two-year coal miner strike that took place in Brookwood, Alabama, between 2021 and 2023 may be in the “rearview mirror,” but the overall fight between the company and its workers is far from over, with Warrior Met engaging in retaliatory actions against targeted workers who were involved in the strike, even after the miners relinquished and ended the strike, agreeing to go back to work on the company’s terms.
And now Warrior Met Coal is finding itself back in the crosshairs of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Melissa M. Oliverio, Administrative Law Judge within the NLRB, last week issued a ruling against the coal mining company, alleging that they violated national labor laws multiple times from the present to all the way back as far as March 2021, citing a persistent lack of cooperation and communication with the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The ruling states that Warrior Met withheld crucial information which the UMWA requested and was within its rights to request, information which was necessary in order for the union to determine whether their demands were appropriate to and reasonable within the company’s capability.
This particular instance relates to a wide-scale issue that workers and unions run into frequently where employers claim they “can’t afford” to meet certain demands, such as pay raises and benefits, but will refuse to demonstrate the claim to be true by withholding necessary financial information when pressed.
“When an employer bases its bargaining position on an asserted inability to pay,” Oliverio writes in her 60-page ruling, “the union is entitled to request and review the employer’s financial records to assess the employer’s representations about its dire financial condition.”
Reviewing the ruling during Saturday’s broadcast of The Valley Labor Report, host Jacob Morrison expressed his own appreciation for the ruling, but is ultimately keeping his enthusiasm in check. “I certainly would hope that this changes something, but I’m not bullish on the prospects of that,” he said, going on to point out the disappointing record of how NLRB rulings like this usually pan out. “The judgment, as far as I can tell, comes with no teeth, no penalty, no fines; nothing to coerce the employer to begin bargaining in good faith, or to acquiesce to any of the union’s demands.”
UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts quickly issued a statement in response to the NLRB ruling, relaying the union’s heartfelt appreciation, as this filing “validates everything we have been saying about this company for more than two years now.”
Roberts went on to say “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.”
Watch our full discussion of this NLRB ruling on YouTube: