A former coal tycoon donated over $1 million to coal miners whose employer declared bankruptcy

“We would like to commend the Richard and Leslie Gilliam Foundation for their philanthropic support for these miners who deserve to get paid for the work they have done.

However, we hope this act of kindness does not conceal the bigger problem that this country faces when it comes to bankruptcy laws. Why are miner’s, that didn’t do anything wrong, having to picket every day to receive what they have earned?

Unfortunately, we have too many corporations running the court systems and not very many Richard Gilliams.”

– President Roberts

 

Source: CNN

August 6, 2019

For the eighth straight day, miners are blocking cars full of coal from passing on a railway track in Eastern Kentucky to protest their employer, who stopped paying their wages after declaring bankruptcy.

Now, to ease the miners’ financial burden, a former coal tycoon has donated over $1 million to directly assist those miners and their families.
On Monday, the Richard and Leslie Gilliam Foundation donated over $1 million to give 508 Blackjewel miners in immediate need $2,000 each. Checks were presented to community assistance groups in Harlan and Letcher counties in Kentucky and Wise County, Virginia.
Blackjewel LLC filed for bankruptcy on July 1, and thousands of miners in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia have been without work and haven’t been paid since. The coal operator owes its 1,700 miners about $5 million in back pay, according to attorney Joe Childers, whose firm represents miners in litigation with the employer.
The central Appalachian communities have rallied around the miners and their families, during what they call a financial crises that started without warning. As a part of fundraising efforts, immediate-need databases were created by community groups in the region, and every miner on those lists will get that $2,000 check from the foundation as early as Friday.
This news comes the same day as litigation in West Virginia federal bankruptcy court started, in which a judge is to approve the sale of Blackjewel mining assets that were sold in an auction August 1-3. The backpay complicates the litigation because, by law, if there is an auction and there is money as a result of that, the money would go to the miners before other unsecured creditors.

“The best man I ever worked for”

Brandon Pearson, 27, is among the Blackjewel employees who’ve been taking shifts to block the railway all hours of the day. Pearson’s first coal mining job at 18 years old was for Richard Gilliam’s company. In fact, many of the miners in Blackjewel mines worked for Gilliam.
“Richard Gilliam, he’s the best man I ever worked for,” Pearson told CNN while on a bus home from West Virginia where miners flocked to protest Blackjewel at court during the bankruptcy hearing.
Pearson never met Richard Gilliam but says management had a way of communicating with employees that “you felt like you knew him personally.”
Richard Gilliam grew up in the coal mining region, and built his business there. “When he heard about the financial crisis, he just felt sad and his heart went out to them,” Julia Gilliam Sterling, Gilliam’s daughter who works for the family foundation, told CNN.
When Richard Gilliam sold his coal operating company, Cumberland Resources Corporation, and its affiliates for $960 million in 2010, he started the foundation with his late wife, putting $100 million into the foundation. An additional $80 million of those sale profits went straight to the employees he left behind. About 500 employees received $4,300 for every year they’d worked for Gilliam, plus an additional 401(k) contribution.
“He really values those employees and everything they did for him, and they were a huge part of his personal success. His hope is this will spur and encourage others with success in business to help the people that made them successful,” Gilliam Sterling told CNN.
Since selling the coal operating business, Richard Gilliam runs a family investment firm and serves as the director of his foundation.

Written By: Lauren del Valle, CNN

 

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Retired Coal Miners Take Capitol Hill, Pushing for a Fix to Pension System

Source: 100 Days in Appalachia

July 25, 2019

A rush of retired coal miners and advocates were in Washington this week, pushing members of Congress to protect their pensions..

About 40 members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) arrived on Capitol Hill Tuesday to meet with lawmakers and voice their concerns during a congressional hearing Wednesday.

The UMWA’s pension fund is headed towards insolvency, with almost all of the coal companies that paid into the fund now bankrupt.

UMWA came to Washington to demand action and to support a bill sponsored by Rep. David McKinley of West Virginia’s 1st District, H.R. 935 – Miners Pension Protection Act.

Rep. David McKinley testified before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources Wednesday. Photo: Courtesy House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources

McKinley’s bill is designed to move funds from the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund to the 1974 United Mine Workers of America Pension Plan in order to “pay pension benefits required under that plan if the annual limit on transfers under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 exceeds the amount required to be transferred for existing obligations.”

Levi Allen, UMWA’s Secretary-Treasurer, said the pension security for his union’s members was the result of hard bargain between coal companies and miners and involved sacrifices on part of the workers. According to Allen, miners’ pensions are not a handout, but a hard earned right.

“They gave up money on their paychecks every single payday to ensure that retirement security,” Allen said.

Rep. McKinley said during a hearing in front of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources Wednesday the insolvency of the pension fund was not caused by the miners, or the union, but by the government’s overreach and regulations.

Lorraine Lewis, executive director of the UMWA Health and Retirement Fund, reiterated in her testimony that the fund was and still is well managed and said that up until 2008, it was well on its way to being fully solvent.

But the country’s 2008 financial crisis paired with coal company bankruptcies that followed caused the fund’s financial struggle.

McKinley’s proposed legislation was met with some indirect opposition from the Republican party leadership.

According to earlier reporting by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Republican leadership wanted to pass much broader legislation that would include other worker pension funds risking insolvency.

But apart from leaving the UMWA miners without the retirement pensions they bargained for, if not resolved immediately, the insolvency of UMWA pension fund could be the first domino to bring down others.

“Government has decided that as a backstop to failed pension plans, workers need the protection of the government, and that’s the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. If the United Mine Workers fails … and we go into the Pension Benefit Guaranty fund, they [Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation – ed.] have stated in their testimony before Congress, that they will fail. When that collapses, there is no more backstop for any other group,” Dave Hadley, a 69-yearold retired miner from Indiana, said.

When asked about why the GOP signaled an unwillingness to vote in Senate on the legislation in its proposed shape Allen said that it’s guided by ideology. “And it’s absolutely wrong,” he added.

The most common pushback takes the form of a bailout argument. Both Allen and Hadley agreed that that’s the one argument that boils the blood of any retired miner who hears it.

“If part of your paycheck is to set money aside for your pension in your older age, and you’ll forego that money today so you have it when you retire. And all you’re asking for with this legislation is just continue paying us what we were owed, what we earned, what we worked for, what we died for, and pay us back – to call that a bailout … you’re totally misrepresenting the work that we lived with and died with,” Hadley said.

The bailout argument was immediately presented to the Subcommittee by Rachel Greszler, a Research Fellow in Economics, Budget, and Entitlements at the Heritage Foundation and a minority witness.

She called the proposed legislation an “open-ended bailout without reform” to the system that, according to her, is failing due to mismanagement by the UMWA.

According to UMWA’s Allen, the fundamental injustice of the situation resides in the fact that, while retired miners are left without recourse, with the bankruptcy of their pension fund on the horizon, mining companies were saved by the bankruptcy courts.

“These bankruptcy laws, these broken laws … that were built allowed the continued extraction of that resource, and allowed the corporations who now own and mine that resource to continue making money to it,” he said of the loopholes that allowed for over $4 billion of collective debt forgiven to the coal companies that went bankrupt.

Some of the 81,500 retirees depending on the UMWA fund, like Sam Ball, a retired miner from Virginia who came up to D.C. to testify, can barely break even every month with their current benefits. He told the committee that any reduction in his income could force him to sell his house.

“I think really what it boils down to is the size of the pocketbooks and people involved, if you’re helping people with small pocketbooks, we have a whole bunch of people out there that want to call that socialism. But if you’re helping people with big pocketbooks, they call that capitalism for some reason,” said Allen.

The bill will now be scheduled for committee markups, but a date has not yet been announced.

We must keep our promise to mine workers

Source: The Hill

July 23, 2019

Perhaps the warning light on your dash is nothing major, but what if it is? No one wants to pay for repairs that might not be needed, but we know that ignoring or avoiding the issue is to do so at your peril and sometimes at great cost.

Congress is facing a flashing warning light with the looming insolvency of the United Mine Workers (UMWA) 1974 pension plan. Now is the time to finally act and do something before the problem gets worse. Congress should pass the Miners Pension Protection Act (H.R.935).

In less than three years, the UMWA’s pension fund will reach insolvency and pension benefits for more than 100,000 miners and their families will be at risk. The families and communities that depend on those pensions will be at risk as well.

The Miners Pension Protection Act ensures that our nation takes care of those who risked their lives to power it. Congress has an obligation to pass this bipartisan bill that would ensure our nation will keep the promise it made to our retired miners, their families, and their widows.

These miners did not do anything to cause this crisis. Their union did not cause it, and their employers did not cause it. Yet, they are the ones who will suffer if we fail to act. Their modest benefit, an average sum of $586 per month, helps them pay for their homes, their groceries, medical bills and basic life necessities.

Misguided federal policies have decimated coal jobs for decades across the country. At the same time, funding for technology that will allow the world to use coal in a carbon-neutral way – a key component of any effort to curb emissions — has languished.

The increased use of natural gas to generate electricity, along with artificial market manipulation to encourage greater use of renewable sources, has led to the closure of hundreds of coal-fired power plants, cost tens of thousands of jobs, reduced the demand for coal and bankrupted more than 50 coal companies. All these recent events – on top of the 2008 financial crisis – brought us to this point.

Since 2013, we have pushed for legislation to fix this problem, and protect the solvency of pensions for retired miners.

In May of 2017, we took a small step by providing a fix for miners’ health care benefits that were at risk of going away. After years of uncertainty, we provided miners and their families with peace of mind that the health care benefits they worked to earn would be preserved. Congress needs to do the same for the UMWA pensions.

While some have advocated turning over UMWA pension plan to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the PBGC has said such an action would cause their multiemployer fund to be exhausted in just one to three years, resulting in massive benefit cuts.

Our solution allows the fund to survive and protect the modest benefits these miners earned through a life of hard, dangerous work.

For years now, Congress has been ignoring the miners’ pension fund warning light and now we are quickly running out of time to keep our promise.

While others may overlook and underappreciate miners, we know that they have worked to make this country the most powerful on earth, and now it is our turn to keep our promise to them.

Congressman David B. McKinley represents West Virginia’s First District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cecil E. Roberts is a sixth-generation coal miner and President of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).

‘Our paychecks bounced’: US workers in limbo as coalmines suddenly close

Source: The Guardian

July 23, 2019

 

Blackjewel files for chapter 11 in a move critics say is increasingly used to avoid paying workers what they are owed.

On 1 July, Missy Cole was notified by her bank that her husband’s most recent paycheck had bounced, leaving their account more than $1,000 in the red. Her husband had worked as a coalminer for nearly three years at one of the eastern Kentucky mines operated by Revelation Energy affiliate Blackjewel mining.

But both companies had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, a financial move that has implications far beyond just laying off staff as the ex-workers now wait for bankruptcy proceedings to play out. Critics say the move is a ploy increasingly used in the struggling industry to avoid paying workers what they are owed.

“A layoff is always expected with miners. It’s always in the back of your mind and it’s no surprise when it happens in the coal industry. But this is much more than a layoff,” Cole told the Guardian.

“We have absolutely no access to our bank accounts. Those accounts are still negative, and falling deeper into the negative daily. We cannot even touch his 401(k) to withdraw money to survive on without the signature of the Blackjewel mining CEO or his personnel.”

One of the largest coalmining operators in the United States, Blackjewel abruptly shut its mines after filing for bankruptcy, jeopardizing the jobs of about 1,700 workers in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming.

Workers are still unsure if they will be permitted to return to work and for how long, if they will be paid for bounced checks and what will happen to their health insurance and benefits.

“It’s been very hard, not knowing if you’re going to be able to put food on the table for your three kids,” said Mark Turner, a Kentucky miner at a Blackjewel-operated mine. He’s unsure how he is going to afford his upcoming house payment, electric bill or buy clothes and supplies for his children with the new school year approaching.

Jimmy Justus, 22, a mine worker for Blackjewel in Virginia, owes his bank more than $1,400 because his last paycheck bounced.

“Now my account has been closed,” he said. On 1 July, Justus was sent home under the impression work would restart the next day, but then heard from co-workers the company had filed for bankruptcy. “The day-shift foreman had no intention of telling anyone anything.”

Another coal worker in Virginia, Mark Atwell, was on vacation with his family at Dollywood when he discovered his last paycheck had bounced. “I had no money to feed my family or even gas to get back home on,” Atwell said, who has three children and a disabled wife.

According to the bankruptcy filing, Blackjewel mining has at least $500m owed in liabilities. A worker in Wyoming has filed a class action lawsuit against the company, which claims the company failed to give employees’ proper notice, and wages and benefits earned before and after the bankruptcy filing.

Blackjewel is the third large US coal company to declare bankruptcy since May 2019, despite promises from Donald Trump that he would save the coal industry and its jobs.

Since Trump took office, about 2,000 jobs have been added to the coal industry, which currently employs an estimated 53,000 workers. The industry has shed more than 30,000 jobs in the past decade, driven by automation and changes in the energy industry, as renewable sources recently surpassed coal production for the first time ever in the US, and natural gas production hit a record high in 2018.

Through filing bankruptcies, attorneys who have represented coal miners argue current laws allow operators to avoid obligations they have to workers.

“It is especially egregious where Blackjewel bounces paychecks to the employees. This compounds with the loss of health insurance and other benefits,” said Jack Jacobs, an Alabama-based attorney who has represented workers in black lung cases. “The miners work very hard and sacrifice a lot for these operators. Very frustrating to see how their loyalty is repaid.”

Attorney Shannon Anderson with the Powder River Basin Resource Council in Wyoming condemned the management of Blackjewel by its CEO, Jeff Hoops, who was recently forced to resign.

Hoops did not respond to a request for comment.

Anderson said: “Hoops was buying up distressed assets from bankruptcies and companies trying to offload mines that were no longer economically viable, and basically created a coal company with those assets.”

She said several Blackjewel-operated mines in Appalachia racked up various environmental violations and citations as the company operated at a loss and tried to keep costs as low as possible.

She added: “None of these mines were making money and he was paying himself before any of the lenders, and basically running these mines at very low cost.”

Because Blackjewel LLC is privately owned, Anderson noted there is less public disclosure into what’s going on with the company, leaving many questions unanswered for workers, their communities and if Hoops will be held accountable.

“All the information we’re getting is more or less off of social media and other co-workers in other states,” said Joe Williamson, a Blackjewel coal worker in Virginia.

Hoops resigned as a condition for a $5m emergency loan, though his multimillion-dollar plans to build a resort in West Virginia will reportedly not be impacted by the bankruptcy. In a letter to workers, Hoops claimed “no one is hurting more than me” as a result of the bankruptcy.

Few workers agree.

“Our paychecks bounced,” said Jeffery Cochran, a coal miner in Kentucky who has worked at a Blackjewel-operated mine for nearly four years.

“Some people have been denied unemployment which is owed to us. He didn’t pay into it for some people, but yet he can build a $30m resort, and doesn’t have to pay us.”

A representative for Blackjewel shared a press release issued on 10 July that noted about 140 employees have returned to work, and they would be paid for prior and future work, but did not address bounced checks for employees outside of Wyoming or the fees workers are accruing due to bounced checks and late bill payments.

 

 

Sen. Roberts forgets the history of the district he represents

Source: The Register-Herald

July 18, 2019

Senator Rollan Roberts calls for civility in teacher unions (”A call for civility in teacher unions,” July 3). I began to question whether I had his district correct in my mind, so I looked it up. Sure enough, Roberts is from Raleigh County and represents Raleigh Wyoming and a part of McDowell in the 9th District. The senator called out teachers and service personnel for staying silent and not speaking out against the dreaded union bosses. Does he not know the union history of his own district?

West Virginians have deep roots. We have a strong sense of home that’s bred into us. We gain comfort from our lush green mountains, and the heritage that sings through the tree tops down into our valleys.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s in Boone County, we all heard the songs of our ancestors through the lips of our family members. My daddy graduated from high school in 1971 and immediately began working in the coal mines. We lived through many strikes and layoffs throughout the years.

We sat down at the dinner table every evening when he got home and frequently discussed what was happening at the mines and what the union was doing about it. The United Mine Workers of America changed the lives of Appalachians throughout the 20th Century and we take that very seriously. Most of us weren’t alive during the hardest fought battles of our people along with the UMWA, but those stories have been passed down to us. They have solidified our community and forever impacted our history as West Virginians.

No one should be shocked when we rally together to head to the capitol. It’s in our blood to stand up for what is right. The term “union boss” is worn as a badge of honor. When we see the green camo and gold, we pay attention. To smack the proverbial hand of teachers and service personnel for unionizing and fighting for our students and the educational system in West Virginia is quite disheartening. I would hope the folks that take care of my two little boys all day have adequate training, supplies, support, pay and can take a day off when they are sick. Sadly, as educators, we have to fight for these rights every legislative session now and even special ones they call against us.

Sen. Roberts, you seem to have gotten most of your story backward. The “reprehensible, vindictive, retaliatory, and hypocritical” behaviors that you mentioned were not exhibited by our great state’s teachers, service personnel or union leaders. Those behaviors were exhibited by the majority caucus of both the House and Senate towards educators in the 2019 legislative sessions.

Anytime you begin to question what “the union” is doing, walk outside and listen to the voices of our ancestors of 100 years ago. They will tell you to listen to and fight for what is right for our workers, our people, and most importantly the children of West Virginia.

Heather Hayes Ritter

Librarian, Scott High School, Boone County

Treasurer, AFT Boone Local 6101

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Head of miners union calls Green New Deal’s main goal ‘almost impossible

The Source: The Hill

July 15, 2019

The president of the United Mine Workers of America characterized the progressive Green New Deal’s goal of transitioning to renewable energy over 10 years as “almost impossible.”

The Green New Deal, introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) earlier this year, aims to cut greenhouse emissions in half by shifting to 100 percent renewable energy over the next decade. The proposal also calls for creating millions of “good, high-wage” jobs to achieve that goal.

“It’s almost impossible to transition in 10 years away from fossil fuels even if everybody was for it,” Cecil Roberts told Hill.TV on Monday. “It just can’t really be done but if you did do that, you’re going to have a massive, terrible economic problem on your hands.”

Roberts argued that over the past 10 to 15 years, the U.S. has been slowly transitioning from coal to natural gas, and that thousands of coal miners in Appalachia have been making the shift too.

“As coal miners have lost their jobs, thousands and thousands of other workers have been able to get employment in Appalachia doing the pipelines to these facilities and in some instances, drilling for natural gas and the new technology — the fracking and all that, that we have all kinds of debates about,” he told Hill.TV.

“What we’re talking about with the Green New Deal is we’re going to eliminate that. So all of this new technology that’s been in place and all the work that’s been gathered because of that — we’re talking about eliminating that and starting down the road to completely renewables,” he added, while noting that climate change is a “worldwide threat.”

Last week, Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) among others, backed a resolutionto declare a climate change an emergency. The resolution would not enact any initiatives to combat climate change or lower emissions.

“This is a political crisis of inaction,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It’s going to take political will, political courage in order for us to treat this issue with the urgency that the next generation needs.”

The Trump administration has rolled back a number of Obama-era climate initiatives and repeatedly cast doubt over whether climate change is real.

In a recent speech touting his administration’s environmental policies, Trump didn’t mention climate change.

—Tess Bonn

To watch President Roberts interview click here.

Roberts praises former UMWA president during bridge dedication

Source: MetroNews

July 12, 2019

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A man with courage is how United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts described former UMWA President Arnold Miller on Friday.

Roberts spoke alongside two of Miller’s children at the UMWA District 17 Office in Charleston during a dedication of a sign that will be placed on an Interstate-77 bridge near Miller’s hometown of Cabin Creek barring his name.

The late Miller was President of UMWA from 1972 to 1979.

“This way he will never be forgotten,” Roberts said. “Not that he was ever going to be but this is something every time someone goes across the bridge from some other state or some other location in the state, they will say well who was Arnold Miller. Once they go across they will look it up who he was.”

Born in Kanawha County on April 25, 1923, the late Miller became a coal miner at the age of 16.

Roberts said he most admired Miller for his service in the Army in World War II where Miller was severely wounded during the D-Day invasion.

Returning home from service and after 19 operations for his battle wounds, Miller found himself back in the mines.

In 1969 Miller was the leader of a union local where he helped lead the passage of West Virginia’s first black lung compensation law.

Miller ran for UMWA President in 1972 against Tony Boyle, the incumbent, and won to become the first true rank-and-file miner to head the labor union.

Roberts said Miller’s run in 1972 came with a lot of courage because of the murder of Boyle’s previous opponent Jock Yablonski.

“To say that I want to the person to run against Tony Boyle after Jock Yablonski, his wife and his daughter were murdered. He had a lot of courage to do that and it was a tough election,” Roberts said.

“There was a lot of arguments and fistfights along the way but he won.”

From the election, Roberts said Miller helped transform the union as it is today.

First, at the 1973 convention brought democracy to UMWA’s national movement and complete democracy to the coalfields.

“The first time we elected our district officials, we had never done that in the history of the union until after the 1973 convention,” Roberts said.

“Then he gave us a right to ratify collecting bargaining agreements. We never had those rights.”

Roberts said the contract Miller helped negotiate in 1974 was one of the best contracts in the history of the coalfields. The contract helped bring personal leave days, floating vacation days, sick and accident insurance to miners, something Roberts said people take for granted these days.

Miller resigned as president in 1979 due to health issues and died six years later in Charleston at age 62.

The bridge that sits on I-77 on the way to Marmet and Charleston has donned Miller’s name with military honors but through legislation in the House, will read UMWA President 1972-1979 now.

A declaration from the House of Delegates was read Friday noting Miller’s achievements.

Roberts said everyone can learn from Miller’s life.

“He taught us with democracy and autonomy comes responsibility. Sometimes we forget that.”