THE HOPES OF AMERICA's coal miners for union democracy and economic justice have been higher than ever in the last two years. Yet in the last two months, those buoyant hopes have been compromised. The miners will return to work soon after an unsatisfactory contract-ratification process with only a tainted victory.

The announcement yesterday that 44,754 of 120,000 miners in the United Mine Workers union voted to commit the union to an inadequate contract for the next three years was only official verification that business continues as usual--at the expense of the miners' expectations for a decent work and a decent life.

About 35,000 of the union's members voted against the new settlement President Arnold R. Miller negotiated for them. But, most significantly, more than 40,000 miners didn't vote at all. The vote was the first rank-and-file referendum on a contract in UMW history, fulfilling Miller's 1972 election pledge to open up the hitherto autocratic ratification process.

During the reigns of John L. Lewis and W.A. (Tony) Boyle, when it came time to negotiate new contracts, there was only one vote that counted in the union's 185-member wage policy committee--that of Lewis or Boyle.

One of the first promises Miller made in his campaign to democratize the union was to abolish the committee and the dictatorial precedents of his predecessors, and to let miners decide on their own working conditions.

Miller has kept his promise and deserves credit for the current accent on participatory self-determination in the union. But Miller also failed his followers when they most needed him. By identifying himself and his regime inextricably with the fate of a less-than-complete contract, by campaigning for its passage through all four days of the balloting--even to the last hour of the weather-delayed plebiscite--Miller shortchanged the miners who voted overwhelmingly for him in 1972.

The most serious problems to come out of the aborted 26-day-old strike will come when the miners return to their jobs--jobs with the highest injury and death rates and the widest range of occupational hazards of any in the land--without the safety provisions they clamored for in September.

The coal operators did finally "yield" to miners the basic human right to leave mines whenever they sense imminent danger. They can do so now without fear of pay-docking. But talk of miner-safety inspection committees and "control over the conditions of the working place" got lost in the shuffle.

The contract's proviso for an 18 per cent pay raise means that coal miners' pay raises are now finally in line with those of other major unions--40 years too late. But the raise does little for the 80,000 pensioners who could not vote on the contract and who will not benefit from pensions which were fattened for men retiring after 1976. These men are living on $150 a month; many are stricken with black lung; all deserve better pensions and medical benefits.

Worst of all, Miller yielded the ultimate weapon miners have used since his election to fight for tolerable conditions--the wildcat strike. By signing yesterday a contract that does not give miners the right to strike over grievances, Miller has forfeited much of the UMW's bargaining power.

But he will never be able to bargain away the miners' hopes--and in those hopes still lie dreams of union democracy and economic justice.