Interview with UMWA President Brian Sanson

 

 

February 25, 2026 - Below is an interview with UMWA President Brian Sanson:

UMW Journal:

As we look ahead to 2026, how do you feel about the union moving forward?

 

President Sanson:

I feel confident in our ability to move forward into the coming years. I feel very positive about the future of the United Mine Workers of America, our ability to continue to protect our retirees, provide a safe workplace for our active workers and promote legislation that’s going to benefit all of our working members.

 

UMW Journal:
We just wrapped up the union’s Special Convention in St. Louis. Can you summarize for us the outcome of that and reflect upon President Emeritus Roberts’ retirement.

 

President Sanson:

First, I would like to thank all the delegates at the convention for giving the union the resources that we need to be able to push these initiatives forward into the future. We have an obligation to continue to protect those who built our union. We also have an obligation to make sure that our active workers have a safe work environment, that they have good contracts to work under, and that those who came before us continue to be provided with protections like Social Security, Medicare and black lung benefits.

 

The resources the delegates gave us at the convention will enable us to fight for all those things as we move forward.

 

 

As far as Cecil’s retirement, it was very bittersweet. Cecil has been a friend and a mentor to me. I can’t say enough about what that means to me and the friendship that we have built over the time I’ve been able to work with him. But at the same time, it is a huge honor and a huge responsibility to be the President of the union. It is one that I do not take lightly and one that I promise every member that I will give 100 percent of my efforts to do the best job that I possibly can.

 

UMW Journal:

A lot has happened regarding the silica rule over the last few years. Can you give us an update on that.

 

President Sanson:

For over a decade, the United Mine Workers have been fighting in Washington, D.C., advocating for the passage of a rule to protect coal miners against silica dust, which leads to the most dangerous and devastating form of black lung disease. In 2024, we finally got a rule put in place, and it was set for implementation in 2025.

 

But all that changed with the new administration and new leadership at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Now we have an Assistant Secretary at MSHA who actually led the opposition to the rule and filed suit to stop it. That is unacceptable. We have been fighting through the courts but were initially rejected by a very conservative court. But that doesn’t mean that we are done. We are going to continue to fight, and we are going to continue to make sure that the rule is put in place, because it’s the right thing to do for the health of our nation’s miners. All workers in all industries deserve to have the safest working environment possible.

 

We will continue to push for the implementation of the silica rule, simply because it’s a danger to every working coal miner in the United States. We are going to push MSHA, and if that
doesn’t work, we’re going to take this back to the courts, we’ll take it to Congress, and we’ll to take this to the streets if necessary to make sure that coal miners are safe and healthy. We
will not stop fighting on this important issue.

 

 

 

 

UMW Journal:

What do you see as the Union’s goals togrow our membership and preserve ourfuture?

 

President Sanson:

Moving forward, we must continue our organizing efforts. Organizing is the lifeblood of any union. If we are to grow, we must organize, and that means going into any industry and talking to any worker who wants to be a member of the United Mine Workers of America. We are going to continue focusing on organizing in mining, but the truth is if we organized every hourly coal miner
in the United States and Canada, it wouldn’t be that many people anymore. So I say to any worker: You will have the opportunity to be a member of the United Mine Workers of America
moving forward.

 

 

The current system in place for organizing workers in the United states is broken. The National Labor Relations Act is flawed. It no longer works. There is no longer a National Labor Relations Board that works, and because of that, workers are basically out there on their own.

We need to start from the ground up. We need a completely new process so workers can truly be able to voice their opinion about whether they want a union in the workplace. And right now, under the broken system, they cannot do that.

 

We have an obligation to maintain a presence on Capitol Hill. We need to make sure that our members have safe working conditions. We need to make sure our members have the retirement and benefits that they have earned.

 

UMW Journal:

There has been a lot of focus on shifting away from coal to natural gas and other resources. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what it means for our membership?

 

President Sanson:

I think that we have a serious problem in states like West Virginia, for example, that have actively moved from coal to natural gas fuel switching for the purpose of providing data centers with the power that they need or want. The cost of that will be thousands of jobs lost in the coal fields and is simply unacceptable.

 

When you look at a coal-fired power plant and the thousands of workers that it takes to run that plant and mine the coal that feeds it, and then compare it to about 30 to 35 people running a natural gas plant, you can see that hundreds or thousands of jobs will be lost. So, for the politicians in West Virginia and other states that think this is some kind of economic boom, it is not. It’s a job killer, and it has the potential to completely wipe out Appalachia.

 

So, I don’t think that replacing coalfired generation with baseload natural gas is a smart thing to do, and I’m not sure that it is a cleaner thing to do. I think that there is still a lot of science out there about groundwater and other contaminants that the natural gas industry specialists need to investigate, and I think that coal is a proven, known way to provide critical energy that our nation needs.

 

The union is prepared to fight against natural gas plants because it’s the right thing to do to maintain the livelihoods of our members.

 

UMW Journal:

Is there anything else you would like to add?

 

President Sanson:

Yes. As we move forward into 2026, I want the membership to know that I am excited and honored to be your new president. I am excited with the energy that runs throughout the coalfields. Secretary-Treasurer Phillippi and I are both ready to continue building a strong future for the United Mine Workers of America. We are ready, and we are willing to get the job done.

I want to, again, thank all the retirees and active members who came to the Special Convention and for giving us the resources needed to build that future going forward. That is going to be a huge benefit to the union. We are ready to go to work, and I think that everyone in the UMWA should be prepared to see an aggressive administration moving forward into 2026 and beyond.