Arizona Copper Mine Strike
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The Arizona Copper Mine Strike began in 1983 as a bargaining dispute between the Phelps Dodge Corporation and a group of union copper miners. The subsequent strike lasted nearly three years and is regarded as a pivotal moment in the history of the United States labor movement[citation needed].
[edit] History
On April 7, 1982, Phelps Dodge announced it would lay off 3,400 of its workers in Texas and Arizona.
Over one year later, in May of 1983, the copper mining company began negotiations with the United Steelworkers and other unions in Phoenix, Arizona. The unions agreed to a freeze of their members' wages for three years, but attempted to bargain for Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) and to prevent job combinations. In recent years, similar agreements had been accepted by other mining corporations, including Kennecott, Asarco, Magma Copper, and Inspiration Consolidated Copper. However, Phelps Dodge was facing competition from overseas producers during a particularly low period of metals pricing. Increased media scrutiny, highlighted by the July 1983 cover of Business Week, declaring a "Management Crisis at Phelps Dodge", implicated chairman George B. Munroe in the company's financial woes.
The subsequent negotiations with the unions failed to lead to an agreement, and on midnight of July 30 a strike began, including workers from Morenci, Ajo, Clifton, and Douglas, Arizona. Thousands of miners walked out and a picket line was formed at the Morenci Mine. The next day, Phelps Dodge increased security personnel in and around the mine. Within days miners were subject to unlawful arrests, firings, evictions, and undercover surveillance by the Arizona Criminal Intelligence Systems Agency. At the beginning of August, Phelps Dodge announced that they would be hiring permanent replacement workers (scabs) for the Morenci Mine. The company took out large employment ads for new workers in the Tucson and Phoenix newspapers. Meanwhile, the local government passed injunctions limiting both picketing and demonstrations at the mine.
On Monday, August 8, approximately 1000 strikers and their supporters gathered at the gate to the mine in response. Phelps Dodge stopped production and, later that day, Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt flew in to meet with the company. Phelps Dodge agreed to a ten-day moratorium on hiring replacement workers, and it was decided that a federal mediator would be called in for negotiations.
On the morning of August 19, military vehicles, tanks, helicopters, 426 state troopers and 325 National Guard members arrived in Clifton and Morenci as part of "Operation Copper Nugget" to break the strike. Strikers at the gate were unable to prevent the replacement workers from entering the mine. Eight days later, ten strikers were arrested in Ajo and charged with rioting. From this point on, the strike lost much of its momentum.
After a series of confrontations and controversies, the strike officially ended on February 19, 1986 when the National Labor Relations Board rejected appeals from the unions attempting to halt decertification.
[edit] References
- Dan Fein. Book On 1983 Copper Strike Draws Wrong Lessons. The Militant, August 21, 1995.
- Jonathan Rosenblum. Union Busting: How Arizona's 'CIA' Helped Phelps Dodge Destroy The Unions. Tucson Weekly, June 29-July 5, 1995.
- Page Stegner. Both Sides Lost. The New York Times, January 7, 1990.
- Kingsolver, Barbara. Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 1989.
- Rosenblum, Jonathan D. Copper Crucible: How the Arizona Miners' Strike of 1983 Recast Labor-Management Relations in America. Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, 1995.
