Cecil Roberts, international president of United Mine Workers of America, had a significant presence at a Wednesday Senate subcommittee hearing into the Crandall Canyon Mine accident.

Even though Crandall Canyon is a nonunion mine, union interest in accident investigation is keen, and a union voice is not unexpected, labor experts say.

The hearings give the labor camp an opportunity, "right after Labor Day, to show their concern for nonunion workers and express the need for unions to confront large employers at the bargaining table," Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., told the Deseret Morning News Wednesday.

Christopher Meek, assistant professor of organizational behavior and labor relations at Brigham Young University, said the union became more vocal when the Crandall Canyon tragedy reached the Senate instead of earlier "probably because it would look too opportunistic, like they were just taking advantage of the situation."

"Even though they've tried to organize this mine before," Meek said, "they've been very careful about not making too many comments during the rescue effort."

UMW spokesman Phil Smith recently said family members of the six miners trapped, and now presumed dead, in the Crandall Canyon Mine had asked the union to represent them with federal investigators, even though the miners did not belong to a union. Smith said Crandall Canyon co-owner Bob Murray did not want his workers to "see what it was like to be under the protective umbrella of a union," and Murray has previously accused the UMW of trying to unionize his mine.

"The UMW tends to act in two complementary, though quite different, ways," Chaison said. "First, it acts as an organizing union, hoping that by presenting itself as a concerned, competent and well-informed bargaining agent for miners elsewhere, it can show nonunion miners that union organization and coverage under a collective agreement will make their job safer.

"Essentially, the UMW will be presenting itself before a huge audience as a militant and experienced protector of coal miners and make the case that only through independent representation can the miners confront large mine operators and make them safe workplaces."

At the same time, the UMW is likely to act in a much broader sphere, showing it is not a special-interest group, but that as a union with a rich and long history of empowering workers and their families and organizing workers on the fringes of the economy, it can act as a concerned voice for working families in general, Chaison said.

"In other words, the UMW will be presenting itself to a wide audience through the media and the hearings as an organization that can act as the voice for workers, not only in the mines, but anywhere the interests of workers can be opposed by large corporations."

Gordon Lafer, professor of labor education and research at the University of Oregon, said the UMW is a big enough organization that it has its own experts and its own studies.

"Historically, the United Mine Workers is the reason there even is a Mine Safety and Health Administration," Lafer said. "It is my understanding they have been pressing at a national level for better mine safety, stricter enforcement."

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