UMWA hails historic Obama victory, looks forward to bright future for coal miners and all working families

The overwhelming victory by President-elect Barack Obama (D-Ill.) signals “a new day for American coal miners and all working families throughout our nation,” United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President Cecil E. Roberts said today.

“President-elect Obama has been consistent in his support for working families and our issues throughout his career,” Roberts said. “He has made it clear that as President, he will continue that support and will make our needs his priorities.

“He will invest in the future of coal in America,” Roberts said. “He will appoint someone as head of mine safety and health who will be a true watchdog on behalf of miners. He will reform our nation’s health care system so that everyone who needs care will get it. He will preserve Social Security and Medicare for our retirees.

“And he will restore the right to organize and bargain collectively again in America, a right we have been denied for far too long,” Roberts said. “The UMWA was the leader in building America’s labor movement in the 1930s and 1940s, which was the catalyst for creating the middle class in our country.

“The increasing gap between the super-rich and the rest of us in America is a direct result of lower levels of union membership,” Roberts said. “We look forward with great anticipation to turning that around, and rebuilding a strong middle class in America once again.”

The UMWA released over 200 staff and members throughout the nation to work on President-elect Obama’s behalf through the AFL-CIO’s Labor 2008 campaign. “We were proud to support President-elect Obama in this campaign, and we are proud that our efforts on his behalf helped him win several critical states in this election,” Roberts said.

For example, UMWA staff and members worked for weeks in southeastern Ohio, where Obama won Belmont and Monroe counties. In western Pennsylvania, the UMWA presence strongly contributed to bringing Obama’s vote levels up to nearly 50% among the very voters targeted by the McCain campaign.

Obama won Cambria county in western Pennsylvania, and came within a few hundred votes of winning Fayette and Greene counties in the southwestern corner of the state. “These were voters that the McCain campaign was counting on winning overwhelmingly,” UMWA International Secretary-Treasurer Daniel J. Kane said. “But instead, they heard President-elect Obama’s message of hope and they listened to the UMWA’s message of better jobs, better health care and better retirement security in an Obama administration and voted accordingly. Our members and their families were the ones who brought the Obama vote nearly over the top in western Pennsylvania.”

“Our work in Virginia was critical as well,” President Roberts said. “Much attention was paid by the national media to the coalfields of southwest Virginia and many predicted President-elect Obama would do well if he won even 35 percent of the vote there. Instead, he won over 40 percent, and came within just a handful of votes of winning Dickenson and Buchanan counties as well as the city of Norton.”

“In northern Virginia, our members and staff dedicated countless hours knocking on doors and phone banking in Fairfax and Prince William counties, contributing to Obama’s overwhelming victories in those counties,” Roberts said. “Many spent their own time on weekends working in other parts of northern Virginia like Stafford and Spotsylvania counties as well, to tremendous effect.”

Roberts noted that even in states where Obama did not win, such as West Virginia, Kentucky and Alabama, his support in the coalfield counties in each state significantly outperformed his statewide totals. For example, Obama won 43 percent of the statewide vote in West Virginia, but he won 47 percent of the vote in the state’s coalfields, including winning Boone and McDowell counties in southern West Virginia and Monongalia county in the northern part of the state.

In the western states of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, President-elect Obama also did significantly better than his statewide totals in areas with strong levels of UMWA membership. He won 53 percent of the vote in Apache and Navajo counties in Arizona, 70 percent of the vote in Colfax and McKinley counties in New Mexico, and 54 percent of the vote in Heurfano and Las Animas counties in Colorado.

“Our members and staff who worked in this campaign did an incredible job to get our message of support for Sen. Obama out,” Roberts said. “I could not be prouder of the work they did over the past weeks and months. They demonstrated once again that the UMWA is willing to stand up and fight effectively for what we believe in.

“Along with all of them, I look forward to working with an Obama administration, one that will put working families first instead of last,” Roberts said. “That’s the kind of change America has so badly needed, and we are excited to get to work so that we can help Barack Obama and Joe Biden make the promise of that change a reality.”

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