Published: March 15, 2017 | Share This

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As of Monday morning, miners at the Lucky Friday mine are on strike due to a failure to come to terms with a collective bargaining agreement that they say they’ve been trying to reach for the last year.

“They’re basically wanting to revamp the whole deal,” USW 5114 President Phil Epler said.

Benefits, safety, and worker well being were scheduled to change, Epler said, putting the hard working men and women of the Lucky Friday Mine in jeopardy.

Epler says Hecla, the mine’s owner, gave the union a “last, best, and final” offer.

“Take it or leave it type thing, but you know they still have a duty to bargain and we still have room to move,” he said.

After negotiations failed, the miners met on Sunday to decide to strike. 230 people voted in favor of a strike. Only two voted against it.

“This is really a sad day for this valley,” Rick Norman said.

Norman has worked at the Lucky Friday Mine for over 30 years. This, he says, is unfair for both miners and citizens.

“It impacts everybody in this valley and everybody in this valley knows that because these are mining people,” Norman said.

As back-breaking as mining is, he says, the heart break of not having to work hurts the community.

“People uproot, they leave empty houses, they’re not going to the grocery stores anymore, they’re not going to the gas stations anymore, they’re not paying their taxes anymore,” he said.

The resiliency is what Norman says will help bring the miners back to work. Epler hopes for the same.

“Hecla’s done record profits, record production, they’ve set record production goals at the Lucky Friday under the current collective bargaining agreement,” Epler said.

Hecla released a statement Monday saying in part, “We are very disappointed in USW Local 5114’s decision to walk out.”

Source: (March 13, 2017) KHQ.com

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