Holding the Line – Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike
Barbara Kingsolver, Faber & Faber, £16.99

THE 1983-84 Phelps Dodge Coppermine Strike may not be well-known here but it gained a significant place in American labour history.

Phelps Dodge ran four copper mines in Arizona; Morenci and Ajo were company towns where all municipal functions, services and housing were run by the company, who even vetted the books in the library.

Mexican-Americans comprised about 40 per cent of the population of Morenci. Hispanic miners could only achieve the status of “labourer,” earning less than their non-Hispanic workmates. The segregation of Mexicans was felt in housing, education and social venues; Ajo’s swimming pool was only open to them late on Wednesdays just before the weekly change of water.

Because their union, the United Steelworkers of America, had fought successfully to end this discrimination, it was well supported and the only thing the copper miners “owned” in a company town.

In 1981 President Reagan sacked 11,000 air traffic controllers and decertified their union, thus unleashing national union-busting campaigns including that of Phelps Dodge. In 1983 negotiations between the company and the union over new contracts collapsed. The miners came out and were threatened with dismissal. The company hired scabs. 

However, Phelps Dodge hadn’t anticipated the resistance and resolve of the mining communities, which resulted in an 18-month strike that Kingsolver, then a young journalist, was sent to cover. She gathered testimonies from around 75 people, mostly women on the picket line (men were prohibited from fulfilling this role by an injunction).

A large part of the book consists of verbatim statements from the women “holding the line.” Notwithstanding its limitations, oral history is an important way for people to describe and explain their own history and is particularly relevant when this history is disputed and denigrated by powerful opponents such as news media and law enforcement agencies.

However, the accumulation of these accounts becomes rather repetitive.

Kingsolver clearly states her aim is to give a voice to the women of the strike and show their developing role in maintaining all aspects of its strength, from picketing and organising food kitchens to fundraising speaking tours, and she succeeds in this.

Some of the most eloquent testimonies are from women who realise that their involvement in the strike has led to a heightening of their political understanding and a broader outlook on life in general. But unfortunately the striking miners, mostly men, are largely absent from this narrative. The inclusion of their thoughts, their dealings with each other and their families would have added another dimension to the understanding of the changing dynamics in personal relationships.

The few men who are included tend to be scabs, mine executives or National Guards on the grounds that they “add a layer of balance to this account.” If the expectation is for an all-encompassing in-depth analysis of the strike, this book falls short. 

The strike progressed with inevitable financial hardship for mining families, enduring hostility between strikers and scabs, unwarranted arrests and imprisonment, and at one point the imposition of martial law in the shape of the National Guard tanks and tear gas. The mining company was determined to crush the union but it was crucial for the strike to succeed as community survival depended on it.

Eventually, as Phelps Dodge’s Arizona mining operations became unprofitable, they closed Ajo sacking 500 employees and sold off part of Morenci. Thirteen union branches were decertified.

Due to the newly gained confidence and independent thinking of women in this struggle, many readjustments were made in family life, including divorce and relocation. Certainly, as her sources tell Kingsolver, life for these women would never be the same again.