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Season 5, Episode 256

Best of 2024: UMWA President Cecil Robers from New Year's Day 2024

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Guest Name:


Cecil Roberts

Guest Website:


UMWA 

Guest Social Media:


Facebook

Twitter

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Supportive Documents:


Merry Christmas! America’s Work Force Union Podcast is spending Christmas Day looking back at some of the best episodes of 2024! Join us as we revisit the first interview of 2024 with United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts, who discussed the Warrior Met Strike in Alabama, outdated protective equipment for miners and the dangers of silica dust.

Roberts began by detailing the two-year Warrior Met Strike in Alabama. He said the coal company was the target of many protests because management did not try to negotiate for a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Roberts called the company anti-union and discussed why the miners were forced to return to work, despite a lack of resolution on a new CBA.

Roberts next addressed the use of outdated protective equipment in the industry. He explained how the masks that miners wear put them at risk of suffocation and death due to multiple breathing hazards. Roberts urged the public to fight against a Congressional plan to end needed safety funding and introduce new bills to implement better health and safety measures for miners.

Finally, Roberts discussed the impact of silica dust. This has affected many young miners who have developed Black Lung Disease. He explained how the dust is created as a byproduct of equipment that cuts through rock, which is then inhaled by the miners. When the dust is inhaled for an extended period due to outdated safety equipment, workers get sick. Sadly, the only cure for “Black Lung” is a lung transplant.

Hear more from the Best of 2024 featuring Roberts by listening to the show above.


America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

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