The 25,000 members of U.M.W.'s District 17 in southern West Virginia are inclined to strike over almost anything. The biggest, brashest, most uncontrollable and most defiant of the union's 21 districts, District 17 went on a ten-week wildcat strike last summer over a reduction in health benefits. It made no difference to the strikers that U.M.W. President Arnold Miller is a District 17 alumnus. They felt that Miller had backtracked on campaign promises and doublecrossed them. In the past, 17's members have struck over things that have nothing to do with coal or the U.M.W.: the banning of studded tires, school...
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