UMWA Denies Knowledge Of Yacht Club Tire Spikes, Admits Paying For New Tires In Past

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Stacey Messina was driving home by herself Saturday evening after dropping her daughter off at a birthday party and visiting the grocery store.

As she was entering the neighborhood, she noticed a steady stream of traffic coming into the Northriver Yacht Club.

Click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter and breaking news alerts.

Figuring there was some kind of large event at the exclusive venue, she thought little more of it as she made her way home. Unbeknownst to Messina and many other residents of the yacht club neighborhood, a Christmas gala was being held by Warrior Met Coal for non-union employees not on the picket line with United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) — the labor union in the second year of a protracted strike in Brookwood.

Just past the tennis courts in the neighborhood, however, Messina suddenly ran over an unseen object that flattened the tire on her hybrid vehicle, causing it to make a loud noise.

"I had run over something, so my husband pulled it out and said 'this is a spike and it was put there intentionally.' ... It was so big my tire deflated immediately," Messina told Patch in an interview Monday. "He got a flashlight and went and looked on our street and there were other people out there. They collected a large bag full of these. They were everywhere."

In all, Messina estimated 30-40 of the spikes were collected and she became one of at least half a dozen people to file reports with the Tuscaloosa Police Department.

Commonly referred to as "jackrocks" or "crow's feet," the spikes are often crude handmade metal barbs designed to deny vehicles entry to certain locations or disable them altogether by deeply puncturing the tires with multiple holes.

"They were thrown under cars, in front of our driveway, in front of our neighbors' driveway," she said. "I don't know if it was the union [that was responsible], but whatever is going on, we're not involved in any of that."

Indeed, Messina and her family have no connections to Warrior Met Coal or UMWA.

This instance is a major development in the ongoing battle between UMWA and Warrior Met Coal, as Monday represents 613 days since more than 1,000 union miners walked off the job in Brookwood as talks broke down regarding a new collective bargaining agreement.

Still, what disturbed many residents north of the river was the fact that tactics in the strike — which has been violent at times, but mostly isolated to eastern Tuscaloosa County — are now being reported in the City of Tuscaloosa. As one official pointed out without placing blame, the spikes have become a kind of calling card linked to the ongoing strike.

"Whoever it was [responsible] was targeting these party-goers and, unfortunately, the party-goers were already parked, so the people who got hurt by it were the residents and people driving home," Messina said. "We have a lot of kids on our street and we still found some [spikes] in the street yesterday. I only hope we find them all before one ends up in a child’s foot."

TPD confirmed as much to Patch, saying this was seemingly the first instance of jackrocks being reported inside the city limits, but a troublesome one nonetheless.

"We're investigating to see if it's related to any other incidents involving the striking miners," TPD Captain Kip Hart told local media Monday morning. "We do not have any direct proof that it is ... We're currently seeing if there were any videos or Ring [doorbell] cameras that might have captured the suspect vehicle."

Hart then urged anyone else impacted by the spikes to contact TPD by calling (205) 349-2121 and file a report if they have not done so already.

'We're trying to be upstanding people'

UMWA International District 20 Vice President Larry Spencer told Patch on Monday that the union was completely unaware of the event held at the Northriver Yacht Club Saturday night and explained that typically when members acted out or there was a situation, he would be aware of it.

"We have no idea what happened," Spencer said, reiterating that the striking union members had not been invited to the Christmas party at the Northriver Yacht Club. "We saw it from the story and that’s it. We’ve run a very, very peaceful protest. We haven’t encouraged anybody to get out there or to commit any type of sabotage at all. From what we’ve seen, it looks like there’s somebody else doing it, I guess so it’ll point back at [UMWA]. But we just want to get a contract and go back to work."

What's most compelling, however, are the claims that UMWA has paid out money in the past to replace tires on vehicles of non-union members dealing with flat tires from the spikes.

Spencer quickly acknowledged the practice and explained the union's rationale for doing so.

"What's happened is, there's been some people that have had flat tires and of course immediately they called us blaming us," he told Patch. "I tell them we're not at fault but it's not fair for you to end up with busted tires because of something going on between the union and company. We're trying to be upstanding people."

Spencer then briefly mentioned a couple of recent incidents involving accusations made against the union, but insisted he hasn't heard anything on the ground from UMWA members on the picket line.

"We’ve had people tell us there are a couple of individuals working at the mines now that throw stuff at our guys on the picket line," he said. "I don't know what that's about."

Hart explained that, as it stands, any suspects involved in the incident at the Northriver Yacht Club would be initially charged with criminal mischief — a misdemeanor offense that he said could be expanded to a felony based on how a judge decides to rule and how the court classifies the dollar amount of damage caused.

According to Code of Alabama § 13A-7-21, criminal mischief becomes a Class C felony when damage is caused to property either in an amount exceeding $2,500 or by means of an explosion.

"We do have some [leads] we are working on, but nothing we can release," Hart said Monday morning.

Much of the public blame relating to acts of vandalism and sabotage has been focused on the union itself — allegations union leaders flatly deny, despite incident after incident. These range from a methane gas line being bombed this past March in a remote part of Brookwood to damage caused to electrical transmission and distribution equipment at the No. 7 mine last summer on three different occasions.

Indeed, the highest concentration of reports relating to spikes in the road can be found near the Brookwood-based mining operation itself, representing a nagging issue for locals for nearly two years.

No end in sight

Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office Public Information Officer Jessica McDaniel confirmed to Patch that 22 reports of damage caused by tire spikes in the area of the Mine No. 7 site and the picket line at the Warrior Met central shop since the strike began in 2021.

This year, 12 related damage reports have been filed with the sheriff's office.

Conversely, Brookwood Police Chief Jimmy Sellers told Patch on Monday that there had only been one report filed within the city limits in the last couple years relating to tires damaged by the tell-tale spikes. Despite the lone occurrence for the City of Brookwood, the police chief stressed that the one case was the only instance that had been reported.

Sellers then mentioned it was impossible to truly know the scope of the tactics employed as part of the dispute if they go unreported by the public.

"We actually worked a traffic accident right in front of Warrior Met's central shop on Lock 17 Road and there was a jackrock in one of the tires," he said. "That was never determined [to be the cause of the wreck] or mentioned to my officer. It was an after-the-fact deal, but that's the only one we've had happen. We've had calls where we get to the calls and they found them. Earlier on, there were a lot of purely innocent people that were impacted by this, but not inside our jurisdiction."

He then offered up an anecdote involving a UMWA strike captain who had gotten a flat tire from a jackrock while passing out checks on the picket line, only for the unnamed individual to turn around and blame Warrior Met Coal for the damage.

The battle has been a taxing one on the union, at least when compared to the current fortunes of Warrior Met Coal. Spencer said UMWA is nowhere closer at present to reaching a new collective bargaining agreement with the company, despite regular meetings to suss out the contentious details.

Instead, Spencer speculated that maybe the company was trying to kill the local arm of the national union altogether at a time of soaring profits for the coal producer. To Spencer's point, Patch previously reported that Warrior Met Coal in its third quarter earnings report said total revenues were $390.2 million for the third financial quarter of this year, which is nearly double the $202.5 million reported in the third quarter of 2021.

Since the bankruptcy and reorganization of Walter Energy in 2016, when the company was rebranded as Warrior Met Coal, the company claims it has tripled its workforce. What's more, the company says the average hourly employee at Warrior Met made $97,000 last year — putting the hourly Warrior Met Coal workers in the top 10% of wage earners in Alabama.

The primary talking point for striking union miners focused on a pay cut that was agreed upon during the company's bankruptcy reorganization, which came at a time of turmoil for a metallurgical coal market that has since rebounded in a big way.

In a show of good faith, the union in 2016 agreed to a 20% pay cut for the five-year term of the labor agreement, which came in the range of $6-$8 an hour for employees, depending on their pay grade. When the contract was up and negotiations resumed, however, the union says the cash-flush company refused to return salaries to pre-bankruptcy levels.

Warrior Met Coal, however, provides a contrasting perspective, arguing that over the last five years the company has given three voluntary and/or above contract wage increases of up to 44.3% to employees represented by UMWA leading up to the strike.

The company even went on to say that some employees are earning $10.58 an hour more than they were at the beginning of the 2016 contract.

"We just don’t seem to be getting anywhere with the company at all," Spencer said. "I don’t know if they’re trying to get rid of the union or what their intent is. We’re still negotiating. We have a meeting about once or twice a month, but we just don’t seem to get anywhere with it. They said they would get [salaries] back as close as it could and this company is making billions of dollars and they just don't want to put no more toward our guys."

Have a news tip or suggestion on how I can improve Tuscaloosa Patch? Maybe you're interested in having your business become one of the latest sponsors for Tuscaloosa Patch? Email all inquiries to me at ryan.phillips@patch.com