The West Virginia Record is reporting that the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) is supporting one of its members who tested positive for cocaine use after two different drug tests and is requesting that the coal company that fired him pay for his drug treatment costs.
West Virginia Record, July 24, 2009 – Link
Consolidation Coal has sued the United Mine Workers of America in federal court for the right to fire a miner who tested positive for cocaine.
Consolidation Coal seeks to overturn arbitrator Michael Wolf, who spared Markel Koon’s job and ordered the company to pay for his drug treatment.
“Reinstatement would enable Mr. Koon to continue to use cocaine without being detected, possibly for years,” Carolyn Wade of Clarksburg wrote for Consolidation Coal.
She filed a complaint on May 11. As of July 20, the union had not answered.
Koon worked underground at Robinson Run mine. According to the complaint the mine lies below Marion, Harrison and Wetzel counties.
Random testing began there last July. In December the company and UMW Local 1501 agreed that grievance and arbitration procedures would apply to testing disputes.
Koon’s name popped up for a random test on Dec. 31. The company sent his urine to a laboratory and the lab sent back a positive report.
“When Mr. Koon was confronted with the results, he denied using cocaine and asked that another test be run by a different laboratory,” Wade wrote.
A second test produced the same result, she wrote.
Robinson Run managers suspended Koon on Jan. 21 and handed him a letter stating their intent to discharge him.
Mr. Koon again denied using cocaine,” Wade wrote.
“Mr. Koon twice lied to Consol’s managers, for he had used cocaine, together with alcohol, on Dec. 28,” she wrote.
Local 1501 filed a grievance on Jan. 23, and arbitrator Wolf held a hearing on Feb. 6.
On Feb. 16 Wolf voided the discharge and converted it to suspension.
He held another hearing on Feb. 24, and two days later he ordered Consolidation Coal to pay for Koon’s drug treatment.
Wade estimated treatment costs at $12,000 to $14,000, and wrote that nothing in the union contract or the testing rules obligated the company to pay the cost.
She wrote that Wolf based his decisions on his own notions of industrial justice.
She wrote that his decisions violated public policy.
West Virginia law and federal law forbid Consolidation Coal from allowing intoxicants and persons under their influence to enter mines, she wrote.
Drug testing of coal miners has already saved lives in Kentucky after they changed the law a few years ago.
My question is why the union is defending a member
who can get his coworkers killed?
Is it the policy of the UMWA that mining is not a safety critical position, hence its members should be exempt from random drug tests?
Is it the policy of the UMWA that a coal company get not get rid of a coke addict? Would you want to go underground with a coke addict and trust that he won’t push the wrong button at the wrong time, and make all the required safety checks before operating/moving something big and heavy?
Really, this makes a mockery of that AFL-CIO commercial on TV, where the union guy claims there is no tolerance for drug abuse among union members.
I also remember a certain power plant construction site that had an alarm tripped, apparently so that someone could miss a drug test.
“Zero tolerance” indeed.
Unreal.
Carolyn is one heck of a good lawyer; I trust that with her at the helm this travesty will be reversed.
Is this what the labor movement has become? A shield for drug users?
Please, will some leftist try to defend this? (saying “we may not have all the facts is not adequate”)
1. Employee is a UMWA member.
2. Employee tests positive for cocaine use using a random drug test selection process.
3. Employee is fired.
4. Employee disputes positive drug test.
5. Employee fails second drug test using different drug testing company.
6. Employee drug testing and termination leads to arbitration because of UMWA grievance.
7. Arbitrator converts employee termination to suspension.
8. Arbitrator orders employer to pay drug treatment costs for employee.
9. Employer files lawsuit against UMWA over arbitration.
10. West Virginia law and federal law forbid employer from allowing intoxicants and persons under their influence to enter mines.
The company is following the law and now will pay thousands of dollars in legal fees simple because they followed state and federal law.
We wonder why businesses are leaving West Virginia. The cost of doing business in this state is too high and groups like the UMWA do not care.
The problem the facts alleged in the suit present is a national, not a WV problem. It does have a clear WV connection and calls for our action. That problem is the excessive power organized labor has and the abuses of that power. Letting intoxicated druggies free to cause injury to others is but one of them.
The national nature of the problem is best illustrated by another WV case in federal court – Eastern Associated Coal v. UMWA, 531 US 57 (2000). The facts in that case are even more outrageous than those in the Consol case.
There the UMWA druggie drove a coal truck (with load weighing more than 40 tons) over the public roads in Boone County. Eastern caught him driving under the influence of illegal drugs and fired him. Like the arbitrator in this case. the arbitrator there ordered Eastern to take him back after completing drug school, on a last chance agreement meaning that if he did it again, he would be fired and could not challenge it. He also had to submit to random testing.
You guessed it. He failed another test. Despite the “last chance” agreement, he filed another grievance and begged that arbitrator to give him another last chance. The UMWA supported him and the arbitrator ordered another drug rehabilitation, this time paid for by the druggie, and then reinstatement to the trucking job.
Like the employer in this case, Eastern went to court arguing that putting a two time loser driving a coal truck on roads used by the public, including school buses serving three schools, was contrary to public policy. The courts, (the Southern District of WV, the Fourth Circuit and the US Supreme Court) did what our congress mandated – they affirmed the arbitrator.
Eastern kept this drug addict off the roads by a large settlement. Idiotic arbitration decisions like these get enforced because our federal congress mandates it.
What’s the WV connection? With the help of the Democrats in our delegation, its about to get worse. Every democratic member of our delegation supports the EFCA, a bill which makes it almost automatic for Unions to get to represent employees in presently union free companies because it eliminates secret ballot elections
While only a minority of WV businesses now have to deal with this problem, if Mssrs. Rahall, Mollohan, Byrd and Rockefeller have their way, many more will. We need to do all we can to change their minds.
History lesson. Mr. Roles has been defending coal and freedom here for a long time. Glad he’s giving us his attention.
Positions like this are why the UMW represents only 12% of the coal miners in WV now, compared to more than 80% in the late 1970s. They are irrelevant, but haven’t realized that fact yet. Might as well call them the United Retired and Disabled Mine Workers…because that’s who they truly represent.
The UMWA quit looking out for the miners a couple of decades ago, now they are just another money collection wing of the democrat party. It’s no surprise at all that the union endorsed Obama who is very intent on destroying the coal industry. It’s no surprise that they are defending the indefensible druggie in this case. Anything that contributes to the breakdown of society is in keeping with the liberal agenda.
Yes, and by fighting for this person, they demonstrate they are more concerned with keeping an unsafe worker on the job than they are with safety. Wait…I thought unions were all about safety…Silly me.
More like the United Nurses union as they represent more nurses than working coal miners these days.