MANNINGTON, W.Va. — After leading the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) for 30 years, Cecil Roberts attended his final Labor Day Picnic in Mannington’s Hough Park.
Roberts assumed the presidency in 1995 when then-president Richard Trumpka left the UMWA after being elected as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. Roberts won the first of many elections outright in 1997 and negotiated a new national coal agreement in 1998.
Roberts will officially retire after the International Special Convention in St. Louis when current International Secretary-Treasurer Brian Sanson will become the next president of the UMWA.
“I’ve stayed around longer than anybody but John L. Lewis, and he stayed 40 years as president, and I made 30,” Roberts said. “It was pretty evident to me I wasn’t going to catch him because I would have been almost 90 if I did that, and it is time for new leadership.”
Roberts returned from his service in the United States Army in Vietnam in 1971, when the union coal miners numbered about 70,000. As Roberts made the evolution from miner to labor leader, he supported the efforts of miner Arnold Miller. Miller was an activist who organized a wildcat strike in 1969 that led to the West Virginia legislature passing the first Black Lung law of its kind in the country.
“We had more influence and more power politically to get things passed in the legislature and to preserve health and safety rules to make sure the mines are safer,” Roberts said. “It’s a fight every single day now, and that’s one way it’s changed now, particularly in Appalachia.”
Recent years have been a push and pull with the government that has led to some health and safety advancements, but in recent months that’s changed. Pointing to DOGE cuts and efforts to shrink the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institute for Occupational Safety (NIOSH), and the Mine Safety Health Administration (MSHA), he said the mines are becoming more hazardous, not less dangerous.
“We’ve known for 50 years that silica is dangerous and kills miners quickly,” Roberts said. “We finally got a rule passed by MSHA, and now people are dragging their feet because the operators don’t want it, and that’s not the way that’s supposed to work.”
The 2001 national coal agreement negotiated by Roberts included substantial pension changes for miners. The “30-and-out” contract language allowed miners with 30 years of experience to retire regardless of their age with full benefits. Again in 2005, the new national coal agreement included $500 million in increased contribution requirements by companies into the UMWA pension fund and the highest pay raises for miners since 1974.
“We’re supposed to protect the coal miners—they’re the most important situation in the mines,” Roberts said. “And if we can’t protect the coal miners, then I think we’re failing.”
Roberts said he’s not going to vanish and plans to remain active in union and veteran causes. He believes Brian Sanson and his background in collective bargaining and contract negotiations will be an effective leader for UMWA members nationwide.
“I’m going to be his biggest supporter,” Roberts said. “The good Lord has been good to me; this membership has been good to me. I’ve won more elections than anybody in the history of our union, and when you can do that, you shouldn’t ask for anything else.”