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APNewsBreak: Federal black lung fund in danger of drying up

Source: AP News

March 19, 2019

COEBURN, Va. (AP) — Former coal miner John Robinson’s bills for black lung treatments run $4,000 a month, but the federal fund he depends on to help cover them is being drained of money because of inaction by Congress and the Trump administration.

Amid the turmoil of the government shutdown this winter, a tax on coal that helps pay for the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund was cut sharply Jan. 1 and never restored, potentially saving coal operators hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

With cash trickling into the fund at less than half its usual rate, budget officials estimate that by the middle of 2020 there won’t be enough money to fully cover the fund’s benefit payments.

As a surge of black lung disease scars miners’ lungs at younger ages than ever, Robinson worries not only about cuts to his benefits, but that younger miners won’t get any coverage.

“Coal miners sort of been put on the back burner, thrown to the side,” Robinson said recently, sitting at his kitchen table in the small Virginia town of Coeburn, near the Kentucky border. “They just ain’t being done right.”

President Donald Trump, who vowed to save the coal industry during the 2016 campaign, has repeatedly praised miners. At an August rally in West Virginia filled with miners in hard hats, he called them “great people. Brave people. I don’t know how the hell you do that. You guys have a lot of courage.”

Trump made no mention of restoring the 2018 tax rate in his proposed budget released in mid-March.

The White House said in a statement Tuesday that “President Trump and this administration have always supported the mining industry by prioritizing deregulation and less Washington interference.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose home state of Kentucky is third in the nation in coal production, told reporters in October the tax rate would “be taken care of before we get into an expiration situation.”

That didn’t happen. McConnell spokesman Robert Steurer didn’t repeat that pledge this week; rather, he wrote in an email, “benefits provided through the Black Lung Disability Fund continue to be provided at regular levels” and that McConnell “continues to prioritize maintaining and protecting the benefits.”

Trump and McConnell have reaped large contributions from the coal industry, according to the political money website Open Secrets.

Trump received more than $276,000 during the 2016 presidential election from political action committees and individuals affiliated with coal companies. His inaugural committee received $1 million from Joe Craft, CEO of Alliance Resource Partners in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and $300,000 from the Murray Energy Corporation, the nation’s largest privately-owned coal-mining company.

McConnell received more than $297,000 in coal industry donations since 2014, when he was last up for election.

Congress established the trust fund in 1978. Until the rate expired, money came from an excise tax of $1.10 per ton on underground coal and 55 cents on surface-mined coal that brought in $450 million last year. Rates fell to about 50 cents and 25 cents when lawmakers failed to act on its Dec. 31 expiration date.

The fund provides health benefits and payments to about 25,000 retired miners. Most worked for companies that are now bankrupt. Many, including Robinson, struggle to breathe as their lungs are slowly stifled by tiny dust and particles trapped there.

Robinson was 47 when he was diagnosed, part of a wave of younger miners that doctors and experts say have been swept up in a new black lung epidemic in Appalachia. Robinson, now 53, and others who depend on the fund are disappointed in McConnell and other leaders who typically enjoy miners’ support.

“I just feel that Mitch McConnell has let the citizens of Kentucky down, especially the miners,” said Patty Amburgey, whose husband, Crawford, died of black lung disease at age 62 in 2007. She draws a monthly widow’s payment through his black lung disability benefits. “And now there’s an epidemic of black lung.”

Dr. Brandon Crum has watched that epidemic unfold at his Pikeville, Kentucky, radiology clinic. In less than four years, Crum has seen 200 miners diagnosed with a severe form of black lung disease, called pulmonary massive fibrosis. The nation had 31 such diagnoses in the 1990s, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

“We’re looking at men in their 30s and 40s on oxygen, being evaluated for lung transplants,” Crum said. “Those are usually middle-age individuals with younger families, so it affects their wives, a lot.”

His findings were published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a December 2016 report that showed a shockingly high level of severe black lung cases at his clinic.

Amburgey, of Letcher County, Kentucky, said there will be fewer benefits for the growing number of younger miners with black lung if the fund is depleted. Robinson said he’s now worried the trust fund’s “pot of money will dry up.”

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and other coal-state Democratic senators are pushing a bill to shore up the fund by restoring the larger tax for 10 years. Manchin said in a statement that lawmakers “cannot continue to allow these solutions to be put off again and again.” That bill is in a Senate finance committee.

The mining industry supported the increased tax rate’s expiration, calling the effort to maintain it an unnecessary tax increase. The National Mining Association, which speaks for the industry, says the lower rate “will be sufficient to cover monthly benefit costs for the fund.” The group argued extending the rate would lead to job losses.

The May 2018 GAO report contradicts that claim, saying the fund’s beneficiaries could multiply “due to the increased occurrence of black lung disease and its most severe form, progressive massive fibrosis, particularly among Appalachian coal miners.”

The increase in younger black lung sufferers will put more pressure on the fund, as the industry continues to shrink.

“I think people always thought they would get (black lung) if they worked long enough in the mines, but I think it’s a disease they thought would affect them at the end of their life, in their 70s or 80s,” Crum said .

Amburgey says Trump reneged on his pledge to support miners.

“Mr. Trump promised that he would bring the mines back and take care of the miners, and that is not happening,” she said. “He promised us a snowball in July.”

 

Written by: Dylan Lovan

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Source: Union Plus

 

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SeaWorld

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Universal Studios

 

 

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Access your Union Plus Water and Theme Park discounts by registering and/or logging into the Abenity website for Union Plus members.

REGISTER/LOGIN AND START SAVING ON FAMILY FUN

 

The Union Plus Entertainment Discounts, including theme park discounts, are available in the United States. It is not available in Canada, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands.
Who is Eligible?
  • All dues-paying labor union members
  • Retired union members
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2019 Workers Memorial Day

Source: AFL-CIO

 

NEARLY 50 YEARS AGO, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, promising every worker the right to a safe job. Unions and our allies have fought hard to make that promise a reality- winning protections that have made jobs safer and saved lives. But our work is not done. Each year, thousands of workers are killed and millions more suffer injury or illness because of their jobs.

After years of struggle, we won new rules to protect workers from deadly silica dust and beryllium, a stronger coal dust standard for miners and stronger anti-retaliation protections for workers who report job injuries.

These hard-won gains are being threatened. The Trump administration has carried out an all-out assault on regulations, targeting job safety rules on beryllium, mine examinations, injury reporting and child labor protections. The labor movement and allies have fought back and blocked some of these attacks. However, this assault has taken a toll-key protections have been repealed or rolled back, and agency budgets and staff have been cut. The number of OSHA inspectors has never been lower. There has been no action on critical safety and health problems like workplace violence, silica in mining and exposure to toxic chemicals.

On April 28, the unions of the AFL-CIO observe Workers Memorial Day to remember those who have suffered and died on the job, and to renew the fight for safe jobs. This year we will come together to call for action on hazards that cause unnecessary injury, illness and death. We will stand united against the ongoing attacks on workers’ rights and protections, and demand that elected officials put workers’ well-being above corporate interests. We will fight for the right of every worker to a safe job until that promise is fulfilled.

 

DECADES OF STRUGGLE by working people and their unions have improved working conditions and made jobs safer. We must fight back and continue to push forward. We must:

  • win new protections on workplace violence, silica exposure in mining, exposure to toxic chemicals and other hazards;
  • defend hard-won safety and health protections and workers’ rights from attacks;
  • resist any attempts to cut job safety budgets or weaken enforcement;
  • increase efforts to protect the safety and health of Latino and immigrant workers, who are at much greater risk of death and injury;
  • pass the Protecting America’s Workers Act to provide OSHA protection to the millions of workers without it, as we ll as stronger criminal and civil penalties for companies that seriously violate job safety laws along with improved anti-retaliation protections;
  • pass the Robert Byrd Mine Safety Protection Act to strengthen mine safety enforcement and miners’ rights; and
  • ensure workers’ right to have a voice on the job, and to freely choose to form a union without employer interference or intimidation.

AFL-CIO criticizes Green New Deal, calling it ‘not achievable or realistic’

Source: The Washington Post

March 13, 2019

The AFL-CIO, the national arm for U.S. labor unions, offered a critical assessment of the Green New Deal, warning that the ambitious plan to combat climate change could adversely affect U.S. workers.

In a letter last week to Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the lawmakers who introduced a resolution last month detailing the key components of their plan, members of the AFL-CIO’s Energy Committee said it could not support a proposal that did not address their concerns.

“We will not stand by and allow threats to our members’ jobs and their families’ standard of living go unanswered,” wrote Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, and Lonnie Stephenson, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

The Green New Deal resolution, as proposed by Markey and Ocasio-Cortez, calls for the federal government to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions with a “fair and just transition” for all communities and workers, including by creating millions of high-wage jobs, health care and housing for all, a sustainable environment and enormous infrastructure investments.

The proposal would make sweeping changes and expand the government’s reach into the economy, and it almost certainly would require tax increases or large-scale deficit spending.

No one is proposing to “eliminate all planes, cows and the military.” No one created “doctored” versions of the deal that included these outlandish proposals. (Joy Yi/The Washington Post)

It entered the national conversation when Ocasio-Cortez adopted it as her calling card. The proposal marries climate change and income inequality as one all-encompassing issue.

Support for the Green New Deal has become a benchmark for Democrats running for president.

But the AFL-CIO throwing water on the plan complicates matters for Democrats who rely on labor support. Without the backing from unions or the business community, it will be a hard sell for Democrats to get it beyond grass-roots support.

In their letter to Markey and Ocasio-Cortez, Roberts and Stephenson called the Green New Deal “not achievable or realistic.” They urged the lawmakers to include labor in conversations related to climate change, but they said such work shouldn’t impinge on other priorities such as infrastructure.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) tweeted the letter and added, “I agree with the AFL-CIO.”

Markey fired back on Twitter: “We will continue to work and partner w/ @AFLCIO, who is right to say that ‘doing nothing is not an option.’ But until Republicans say that climate change is real, caused by humans, and demands action now, the only people they are in agreement with are Big Oil and the Koch brothers.”

In the fall, the top scientific body studying climate change found that the world had to take “unprecedented” steps to reduce carbon levels, with the globe on pace to warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over preindustrial levels.

The Trump administration has not proposed a comprehensive agenda for addressing climate change. It has dismantled some initiatives supported by the past administration to check the growth of greenhouse gases.

President Trump has repeatedly questioned the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring. Just Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted a quote from “Fox and Friends,” where a guest said: “The whole climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science. There is no climate crisis, there’s weather and climate all around the world, and in fact carbon dioxide is the main building block of all life.” Trump added: “Wow!”

The Green New Deal has become a favorite foil for Trump and congressional Republicans. Trump mocked the plan in a speech to conservatives last week, pretending to ask his wife to check the wind to determine whether they could watch television.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he wants to bring the proposal to a vote to force Democrats to take a stand on it.

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) said Tuesday the Green New Deal risks alienating labor groups, giving Republicans an opportunity with voters who side with conservatives on issues such as gun control and abortion. Exit polling from the 2016 presidential election showed a sharp decline for Democrats in support among union households.

“If Republicans play it smart and stop antagonizing labor, there’s a real opening for us,” King said.

Co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), acknowledged during a news conference Tuesday that labor groups have some concerns with the Green New Deal.

“Anything we move forward on, we have to be recognizing that people could lose jobs,” Pocan said.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters on Capitol Hill last week that labor was not consulted on the Green New Deal before it was released.

“Look, we need to address the environment. We need to do it quickly,” he said. “But we need to do it in a way that doesn’t put these communities behind, and leave segments of the economy behind. So we’ll be working to make sure that we do two things: that by fixing one thing we don’t create a problem somewhere else.”

There has long been tension between the environmental and labor movements, two major parts of the broader Democratic coalition, over worries that rules meant to curb pollution can lead to job losses in regulated industries with high-quality, good-paying positions.

The crafters of the Green New Deal sought to smooth over those concerns by incorporating into their proposal a “fair and just transition for all communities and workers” as the United States seeks to drive down climate-warming emissions from the electricity, transportation and agriculture sectors.

The resolution called for any economic transition to create “high-quality union jobs” and guarantee “wage and benefit parity for workers affected by the transition.”

Robert Hockett, a law professor at Cornell University who advised Ocasio-Cortez on the Green New Deal, argued the apprehension is misplaced because new environmental protections can lead to job growth elsewhere.

“They are probably objecting prematurely,” Hockett said. “It has become customary to think of these as separate problems.”

Yet even before Markey and Ocasio-Cortez released their Green New Deal resolution, some heavy-industry unions were already posturing against it.

Seven unions representing ironworkers, plumbers, electrical workers, boilermakers, sheet metal workers, transportation communication workers and coal miners began late last year sending a white paper to congressional offices expressing “grave concerns about unrealistic solutions such as those advocated in the ‘Green New Deal.’ ”

Instead, the unions said a cap-and-trade proposal such as the one Democrats under President Barack Obama tried and failed to pass in 2009 was a better “starting point” for new legislation.

Markey, then a member of the House, was a lead sponsor of that bill.

John Risch, who worked as a locomotive engineer for 30 years before becoming the national legislative director at the transportation division of one of the unions, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers, worried that any promise of a “just transition” for his members hauling coal and oil by train would end up being empty.

“We are not knuckle-draggers,” Risch said. “We’re concerned about climate change. We want to do something positive. But there are a lot of jobs on the lines.”

At least one of the main Green New Deal sponsors is recognizing — and trying to heal — the rift between environmental and labor groups over it.

Last week, staffers working for Markey met with Phil Smith, the head of communications and government affairs for the United Mine Workers of America, after the senator’s office reached out to the nation’s most prominent coal-mining union.

Smith called his meeting “a good first step.”

Still, he called the Green New Deal’s ambitions to meet all of the nation’s electric power needs with “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” within a decade a nonstarter, with coal still accounting for more than a quarter of the country’s electricity generation.

Written by: Colby Itkowitz , Dino Grandoni and Jeff Stein

Sen. Warner Meets with Coal Miners

Source: The Coalfield Progress

March 8, 2019

In a meeting with United Mine Workers of America coal miners in Washington, D.C. Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner stressed the need to pass the American Miners Act of 2019, legislation he sponsored that would permanently protect the healthcare and pension benefits for thousands of Virginia’s retired coal miners and their families.

The bill would also protect healthcare coverage for 500 Virginia miners who are at risk of losing their benefits due to the 2018 bankruptcy of Westmoreland Coal Co., which operated in Wise County and had been a leading employer here for decades.

Currently, the 1974 UMWA Pension Plan is on the road to insolvency due to coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis. Warner said the American Miners Act would shore up the pension plan to make sure that 87,000 current beneficiaries and an additional 20,000 retirees who have vested won’t lose the pensions they have paid into for decades, Warner’s office said. In Virginia alone, there are approximately 7,000 pensioners who are at risk of losing their benefits if Congress does not act.

In May 2017, Warner worked with several colleagues to pass bipartisan legislation to protect healthcare for retired miners — including more than 10,000 miners and their families in Virginia — who were orphaned by coal bankruptcies. But the recent Westmoreland bankruptcy has endangered health care benefits for additional miners and dependents — including 500 people in Virginia. This legislation will extend the fix to ensure that miners who are at risk due to 2018 coal company bankruptcies will not lose their healthcare.

Lastly, the bill also calls for an extension of the tax that finances medical treatment and basic expenses for miners suffering from black lung. The Black Lung Disability Trust Fund is supported by an excise tax on mined coal that was cut in half at the end of 2018. The American Miners Act of 2019 would restore the tax to previous levels for 10 years.

Locally, the Virginia Coal and Energy Alliance had supported the cut and advocated against an extension.

UMWA Works on Legislation to Benefit Westmoreland Retirees

Source: Kemmerer Gazette

March 8, 2019

UMWA Local 1307 member Larry Hinton speaks about what’s at stake for retired Kemmerer coal miners.

The bankrupt Westmoreland Coal Company may soon be free of all obligations to retired miners at the Kemmerer mine. But the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) has shifted gears in order to protect the pensions and health care benefits that Westmoreland retirees were promised.

In a March 1 statement, UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts announced the union had reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement with the buyer of the Kemmerer mine, Western Coal Acquisition Partners, but funding for future retiree health care is still at stake.

“Judge David Jones did order Westmoreland to set aside $6 million for retiree health care, meaning retirees do not have to worry about their immediate health care needs. But that is not enough to make it through the year, so negotiations are ongoing,” Roberts said.

Roberts mentioned the union had worked with “allies in Congress” to propose national legislation that would place the Westmoreland retirees under the umbrella of current union health and retirement funds.

“The promise must be kept to all retired UMWA miners, their dependents and widows,” Roberts said.

The UMWA published a video titled “A Matter of Life or Death – Westmoreland Bankruptcy” in order to encourage union members to learn about the proposed legislation.

“As we get older, that’s when major health concerns hit you, and so now is a hell of a time to take away our benefits,” says UMWA Local 1307 member Larry Hinton in the video.

“Coal miners did everything right,” Roberts says in the video. “They had a tough life while they were working … you assume you’ve earned a pension and that it’s gonna be fine and you’ve earned healthcare and that’s gonna be fine, but then you start reading and you think, ‘well, maybe not.’”

There are currently three bills in the U.S. Congress that address the healthcare and pensions of retired miners from Westmoreland and other coal companies in similar financial situations.

House Resolution 934 is titled the Health Benefits for Miners Act of 2019. It was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in late January and was referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources (a division of the House Committee on Natural Resources) on Feb. 19.

HR 934 amends the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, adding protection for miners whose health benefits would be denied or reduced as a result of a bankruptcy proceeding commenced in 2018. The Westmoreland bankruptcy proceedings began in October 2018. The bill was introduced by Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-Va.), and is cosponsored by representatives from West Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

House Resolution 935, the Miners Pension Protection Act is a bill that transfers certain funds to the 1974 United Mine Workers of America Pension Plan. HR 935 was introduced by Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.).

Senate Bill 27, the American Miners Act of 2019, was introduced in the U.S. Senate in January. SB 27 was introduced by Sen. Joe Machin III (D-W.Va.), and also transfers funds to the 1974 UMWA Pension Plan.

In the union statement, Roberts urged union members to contact their legislators in support of the bills.

None of Wyoming’s congressional delegation have come out in support of the legislation.

Roberts said that when the UMWA reached an agreement with new Kemmerer mine owner Western Coal Acquisition Partners about retiree health care, the new plan would be brought before union membership for a vote.

The UMWA has fought Westmoreland’s plans in bankruptcy court ever since October 2018, when Westmoreland announced their plans to modify retiree benefits.

UMWA Local 1307 members even protested outside Westmoreland headquarters in Englewood, Colo., with signs that read “Westmoreland promised. Westmoreland lied.”

Dozens of working and retired Kemmerer miners wrote to bankruptcy judge Jones, arguing that Westmoreland’s financial troubles did not justify taking away the benefits they had earned through decades of mining.

But on Feb. 15, Jones ruled that Westmoreland could freeze pensions and stop paying millions of dollars in health care benefits to Kemmerer mine retirees as part of its financial restructuring plan.

The decision terminated the collective bargaining agreements between the Kemmerer mine and the UMWA.

The court decision echoed dozens of previous cases in which bankrupt coal companies were granted permission to terminate benefits in order to avoid liquidation and emerge from bankruptcy.

On March 2, the bankruptcy court in Texas approved Westmoreland’s sale of the Kemmerer mine to Western Coal Acquisition Partners, as well as the sale of other assets to Westmoreland creditors. The coal company’s creditors now take ownership of mines in Montana, New Mexico and Canada.

“Westmoreland’s mine assets will remain in operation under new leadership and the Company will continue operating in the normal course, emerging with a strengthened balance sheet and better positioned to succeed,” Westmoreland announced in a release on Monday, March 4.

The union has turned its attention to the new owner of the Kemmerer coal mine in order to secure health care and pensions.

Western Coal Acquisition Partners is headed by Virginia billionaire Tom Clarke and is a division of Merida Natural Resources. The company was the sole bidder for the Kemmerer mine, which was bought from Chevron by Westmoreland Coal Company in January 2012. Clarke’s $215 million bid for the mine included $7.5 million in cash and $207.5 million in secured promissory notes.

Westmoreland, which has more than $1.4 billion in debt, made their case in bankruptcy court by arguing that no buyer wanted to purchase the Kemmerer mine if it was attached to the collective bargaining agreements with the union.

The coal company announced that they hope to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection by the end of the first quarter of 2019. Westmoreland bought the mine in 2012 for $179 million, plus $14 million in capital.

Clarke has echoed Westmoreland’s statement that paying the Kemmerer retiree health care and benefits as they stand is not financially feasible for his company.

But Clarke has said he wants to work with the union and the miners to build a “strong, stable future for Kemmerer.”

Written by: Theresa Davis

The Fight Is Not Over For Westmoreland Retirees – UMWA

Source: Wyoming Public Media

March 5, 2019

Retirees of the Kemmerer Coal Mine won’t be getting their expected health-care benefits, but the United Mine Workers of America aren’t giving up.

Mike Dalpiaz, International Vice President for United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) representing coal mine workers in the Western U.S., said negotiations are underway with the mine’s new owner for benefits and conditions of employment. The new owner is billionaire executive Tom Clarke. A Houston bankruptcy court approved the sale March 2.

“We’ve got to make sure our current pensioners they get their checks every single month. That’s what’s so important. Most, a lot, of these people live on that,” Dalpiaz said.

The Houston court ended up allowing retirees to retain pensions, albeit frozen and without accrual, and get a year’s worth of healthcare benefits. A lawyer representing Westmoreland said those benefits serve as a transition for a congressional solution.

Dalpiaz said UMWA is lobbying hard to pass the American Miners Act of 2019. It would provide a lifetime healthcare plan for Westmoreland Coal Company retirees.

“We’re going to bring people from all them states, you know, to lobby their representatives or Congressmen, their Senators of the respective states to see whether or not they will do something,” Dalpiaz said.

He said no representatives or senators from Wyoming or Idaho have come out to support the bill to provide benefits.

Written by: 

Will Congress Fix Pension Crisis Before Coal Miners’ Pensions Disappear?

Source: Value Walk

March 5, 2019

Worried About “The Cost of Inaction,“ Retired Coal Miners with Pensions at Risk Head to Capitol Hill as Education and Labor Committee Holds Hearing on Growing Pension Crisis.

WASHINGTON – On Thurs., March 7, a Congressional hearing on “The Cost of Inaction: Why Congress Must Address the Multiemployer Pension Crisis,” will hear testimony from retirees and employers on growing fears that some of the nation’s largest multiemployer pension plans will soon become insolvent.

Prior to the House Education and Labor Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions hearing, retired members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) from Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania will be meeting with members of Congress and are available for interviews with the media from March 5-7. The miners’ pension plan is one of the most vulnerable due to an unprecedented wave of coal company bankruptcies that have hit the energy sector.

In the last Congress, the Joint Select Committee on the Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans failed to come up with a solution to the nation’s pension crisis by the committee’s November deadline. The pension plans of 1.5 million coal miners, truckers, bakery workers and other retirees nationwide are currently on the brink of failure.

But the miners’ pension fund, the UMWA 1974 Pension Plan, will be the first of all these major plans to go insolvent, in the Plan’s 2022-23 fiscal year. There is only one major employer left contributing to the 1974 Plan, and since the coal industry remains in serious economic difficulty, any further industry bankruptcies will cause the fund to collapse.

That is why the miners and their allies in Congress are seeking a Congressional solution through S. 27 and H.R. 935 as soon as possible to preserve the 1974 Plan and the pensions these retirees earned and were promised.

The House Education and Labor Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions will hold its Thurs., March 7 hearing in Room 2175 Rayburn HOB at 10:15 a.m.

Written by: Jacob Wolinsky

Labor Unions are Skeptical of the Green New Deal, and They Want Activist to Hear Them Out

Source: The Intercept

March 4, 2019

DECIDING WHETHER TO sign onto the Green New Deal resolution is not an easy call for many members of Congress. They have to contend with the usual opponents: coal, utilities, oil companies, and other big-pocketed interests who like today’s economic order just fine. But even on the left, coalition-building can be complicated.

After signing onto the Green New Deal as an original sponsor, one House Democrat felt that acutely when he traveled back to his district and met with two top local labor leaders. The congressperson, who asked not to be named, said he faced harsh criticism from building trade representatives who worried the plan would put their members out of work. He pushed back, arguing that their members will actually fare better with a green infrastructure plan that can drive up wages for blue-collar work, pointing to jobs like retrofitting buildings and constructing renewable energy infrastructure.

Recent polling has found strong bipartisan support for a Green New Deal, but unions, a key constituency, have been less than enthused by — and in some cases, downright hostile to — the ambitious proposal to tackle climate change.

Terry O’Sullivan, the general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, or LIUNA, denounced the Green New Deal the day it was introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. In a blistering statement, O’Sullivan said it was “exactly how not to enact a progressive agenda to address our nation’s dangerous income inequality” and “exactly how not to win support for critical measures to curb climate change.”

For many observers, the construction union’s opposition was not too surprising. LIUNA had ardently supported the Dakota Access pipeline and said in 2016 that the labor organizations who opposed the project were “self-righteous” and “display[ing] a truly amazing level of hypocrisy and ignorance.” In January 2017, shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration, LIUNA was one of several building trade unions to meet with the president, later praising Trump’s “remarkable courtesy” and affirmed that LIUNA “look[s] forward” to partnering with the White House on infrastructure.

Some climate activists have said that support for the Green New Deal should be a litmus test for progressives. Writing for The Intercept, Naomi Klein argued recently that the labor movement should “confront and isolate” LIUNA over its opposition. “That could take the form of LIUNA members, confident that the Green New Deal will not leave them behind, voting out their pro-boss leaders,” she wrote. “Or it could end with LIUNA being tossed out of the AFL-CIO” — the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the country’s largest umbrella group for unions — “for planetary malpractice.”

As advocates of the Green New Deal work to gin up more support for the resolution, they face the challenge of parsing out bad-faith criticisms from legitimate critiques by those whose livelihoods would be impacted by a transition to green jobs. The way they straddle that line and respond to those concerns could make all the difference in getting the critical mass of support needed for the Green New Deal to pass.

Ocasio-Cortez and Markey’s nonbinding resolution includes explicit language backing union jobs that pay prevailing wages and a commitment for “wage and benefit parity for workers” affected by the energy transition. The Green New Deal also calls for “strengthening and protecting” the right of workers to organize and collectively bargain, and for “enacting and enforcing trade rules, procurement standards, and border adjustments” with strong labor protections.

Despite those promises, only one big union, 32BJ SEIU, has come out swinging in support of the Green New Deal. The majority of labor organizations have so far stayed quiet or voiced skepticism or criticism. The opposition, particularly for those in the building industry, is rooted in concerns about jobs and wages, as well as the approaches favored in the resolution for decreasing carbon emissions. There is also a political thread, with Trump-voting Republican coal miners, for example, hesitant to embrace a policy that has been sponsored only by members of the Democratic caucus.

Evan Weber, political director at Sunrise Movement, the youth advocacy organization credited with putting the Green New Deal on the political map, suggested that his group is not too worried about labor’s early response. “Since the resolution launched, a few [unions] have put out negative and less-than-enthusiastic statements about the Green New Deal,” he said, “but most are remaining silent and choosing to view this as a potential opportunity.”

TWO WEEKS AGO, seven unions representing workers in the building industry sent a letter to the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and its ranking member, Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., saying they “have grave concerns about unrealistic solutions such as those advocated in the ‘Green New Deal.’” The unions have also used the letter — which outlines their climate legislative priorities — in meetings with House members and senators since January, according to Phil Smith, spokesperson for the United Mine Workers of America.

Despite advocating their position in Congress, the signatories have not yet made public statements on the Green New Deal. Mark Brueggenjohann, spokesperson for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which signed the letter, told The Intercept that his union is not commenting now on the resolution, but “will be better prepared to do so” when actual legislation is available.

One climate strategy that many unions have said is important is investing in carbon capture technology and storage — a conceivable, if yet to be realized, way to prevent most of the carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuel plants from entering the atmosphere. This method has already generated a bit of controversy in the rollout of the Green New Deal. 

“The answer, to us, is not quit using coal, but to spend the kind of money that needs to be spent on carbon capture technology.”

In November, the Sunrise Movement called for a Green New Deal Select Committee that included “funding massive investment in the drawdown and capture of greenhouse gases.” This language appeared to endorse research and development in carbon capture technology, something many climate experts say is necessary to keep the planet from overheating. But in January, as Robinson Meyer from The Atlantic reported, the drafters of the final version of that resolution quietly removed any reference to “capturing” greenhouse gases. Meyer noted that the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last fall warned that a failure to make major changes to reduce global warming in the next 12 years will be catastrophic for the planet, “has not produced any projection that shows us hitting that [necessary decarbonization] target without massively deploying carbon-capture technology.”

Carbon capture technology is somewhat polarizing. Critics say it’s risky to bank on pricey technology that does not really exist yet, and they say that the fossil fuel industry uses the prospect of carbon capture as an excuse to avoid reining in their environmentally harmful businesses.

Supporters, however, argue that investing in carbon capture is scientifically necessary for reducing emissions globally and vital for maintaining economic stability. “Our union does not question the science about climate change, and we’ve been working for some time on ways to mitigate it,” said Smith, the spokesperson for the mine workers union. “The answer, to us, is not quit using coal, but to spend the kind of money that needs to be spent on carbon-capture technology, on a commercial scale in this country and across the world. The fact of the matter is, if you don’t do that, you’ll never solve the global crisis.”

The Green New Deal resolution doesn’t explicitly rule out carbon capture technology, but in a section that deals with removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, the authors endorse “proven low-tech solutions that increase soil carbon storage,” like protecting land and planting new trees. Other vaguely written sections of the resolution, however, could open the door for carbon-capture technology. The resolution endorses “creating solutions to remove” emissions, and endorses the international exchange of technology, products, and services to address climate change.

The resolution is nonbinding, so the inclusion or exclusion of a provision does not dictate how future legislation will be written, but it does suggest some hesitancy to embrace carbon capture technology and storage.

The Sunrise Movement does not see “a heavy role for carbon capture and storage,” said Weber, the group’s political director, though he said it could be worth investing in some research and development for so-called heavy industry like steelmaking and shipbuilding. He noted that carbon capture technology is “pretty expensive compared to just reducing emissions by moving toward alternative forms of energy.” Ocasio-Cortez’s and Markey’s offices did not return requests for comment.

As an alternative, Weber said photosynthesis should be seen as an optimal way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. “We think there’s a lot of upward potential here in the U.S. to do ecosystem restoration and preservation,” he said. “A number of studies have shown that that can really help us get toward our climate goals and we’re most interested in investing in those proven solutions.”

LABORERS ARE ALSO skeptical of what the Green New Deal’s promise for a “just transition” would mean in practice. “We think it’s very important to find out what a ‘just transition’ actually means and who gets to define it,” said Smith of the mine workers union. “And will people be paid what they’re earning now, with the same level of benefits? None of that has been clarified.”

“The job guarantee is a really critical element of the Green New Deal.”

Members of the United Mine Workers of America earn an average of $30 an hour, along with employer contributions to a 401(k), paid sick leave, paid vacation, and ample health benefits, according to Smith. “I think, frankly, if you’re able to say to these folks, here’s a $30-an-hour job with all the rest of the stuff you’re used to, and you’ll pretty much work the same hours, you’ll have folks say, ‘OK, I’ll consider this,’” he said. “But that’s not what anyone is saying. And it seems to us there’s a very naive view about what this is going to cost and where the money is going to come from.”

Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, responded to early criticisms of the Green New Deal by saying that they envision future legislation that would provide economic security to miners who would find a switch to a new career challenging.

When asked if his members see an urgency to address climate change, Smith said they haven’t done formal polling, but that “anecdotally, our membership is very split on that issue.” He noted that plenty of miners voted for Trump and tend to agree with his perspective on climate change.

Sean McGarvey, president of the North America’s Building Trades Unions, or NABTU, told Reuters that his members were skeptical of promises of “green jobs” and noted that “renewable energy firms have been less generous” than the oil and gas sector when it comes to paying their workers. Renewable jobs, notably, are generally safer than fossil fuel jobs and can be done anywhere in the country, unlike jobs that are dependent on the location of a mine or an oil rig.

Like the mine workers, when it comes to NABTU and other critics of the Green New Deal, members’ political orientations are relevant.

In 2016, NABTU, along with LIUNA and a handful of other unions, sent a letter to the AFL-CIO, calling on the federation to cut ties with Democratic billionaire donor Tom Steyer, a vocal critic of the Keystone oil pipeline. (Since Trump’s election, Steyer has also frequently called for the president’s impeachment.) Despite their agreement over Keystone, the groups’ partisan leanings are a bit divergent. In the 2018 cycle, NABTU gave 41 percent of its political action committee contributions to Democratic candidates and 59 percent to Republicans. More than 75 percent of LIUNA’s contributions, by contrast, went to Democrats in the last election.

NABTU and LIUNA did not return multiple requests for comment.

Weber, the Sunrise Movement’s political director, said some of the concerns unions have raised about needing more specificity are “completely valid,” though he accused LIUNA of lying about what the resolution contains and misrepresenting climate science. “It’s always kind of disappointing to see potential allies resort to tactics that we see the right wing and our common enemies using,” he said.

With respect to labor issues, Weber said, the Green New Deal is “leaps and bounds ahead of previous climate proposals.” From his group’s perspective, if energy workers cannot find new jobs that pay them equal to what they’re currently earning, then “the government should step in and make up that difference,” he said.

“I think the job guarantee is a really critical element of the Green New Deal,” he said. “It doesn’t say if you’re a coal miner, you’re now going to go work on installing solar panels; it asks what are the jobs that make sense for your community and have this transition be something that’s locally determined.”

THE UNION THAT has offered the most enthusiasm for the Green New Deal has been 32BJ, which represents 163,000 door attendants, security officers, cleaners, and airport workers along the East Coast. On February 6, the Joint Executive Board of 32BJ passed a resolution in support of the Green New Deal and “reaffirm[ed] its commitment to a 100 percent clean and renewable energy economy.”

In an interview with The Intercept, 32BJ’s New York City-based president, Héctor Figueroa, proudly noted that his union was the first to come out in support of the Green New Deal. “We can build unity in labor if we can recognize the urgency of the climate crisis” and effectively link the fight for climate justice to economic justice, he said.

“They know the impact of climate change back in their home countries. They understand this is a global problem.”

Figueroa’s rhetoric is similar to that of Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise activists. He emphasized the need to take action “in a big, bold way” that addresses climate “concurrent to the problems of income inequality and declining labor standards.” He noted his personal connection — his family comes from Puerto Rico and has been dealing with the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria — and he said two-thirds of their membership was born outside of the United States. “They know the impact of climate change back in their home countries,” he said. “They understand this is a global problem.”

32BJ’s February resolution on the Green New Deal “marked a new phase” in the union’s engagement on climate change, as for the past two decades, they’ve focused primarily on advocating for green jobs and energy efficiency standards, Figueroa said. “Now we’re taking another step, which is to very clearly and categorically say we need to build a future without fossil fuel,” he explained.

32BJ’s next task will be to pressure its national union, SEIU, to support the Green New Deal. “We are very passionate about it, and we believe it’s the right place for labor,” he said.

Other locals may also play a role in pressing their parent unions for support. Out in California, the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, of which an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local is a member, issued a resolution in support of the Green New Deal.

Aside from that, most unions have stayed silent — even those that have contributed to the discourse around climate change in the past. The AFL-CIO, for example, passed a resolution in October 2017 on “Climate Change, Energy, and Union Jobs.” The resolution affirmed the labor federation’s commitment to passing “energy and environmental policies with a focus on ensuring high labor standards, the creation of union jobs and environmental sustainability,” and also affirmed its support for enacting “comprehensive energy and climate legislation that creates good jobs and addresses the threat of climate change.” In 2009, the AFL-CIO worked to shape the House’s cap-and-trade bill. The American Clean Energy and Security Act — the name of which is conspicuously missing the term “climate change” — died in the Senate without a vote.

While the AFL-CIO has yet to issue a statement on the Green New Deal, in September, the federation’s president, Richard Trumka, gave a speech on fighting climate change that is telling of the group’s perspective. He said that “strategies that leave coal miners’ pension funds bankrupt, power plant workers unemployed, construction workers making less than they do now … plans that devastate communities today, while offering vague promises about the future … they are more than unjust. … They fundamentally undermine the power of the political coalition needed to address the climate crisis.”

The BlueGreen Alliance, a partnership of 14 unions and environmental organizations — including the Sierra Club and United Steelworkers — backed the cap-and-trade bill in 2009, but has not commented on the Green New Deal. (Spokesperson Abby Harvey declined The Intercept’s request for comment.) Critics have noted that BlueGreen Alliance tends to avoid weighing in on more controversial issues, like the Keystone XL pipeline. (LIUNA, which supported the pipeline, quit the alliance in 2012 over related disagreements.)

David Foster, the former executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, wrote an op-ed in The Hill earlier this month, urging the public to study the lessons from a decade ago, the last time leaders called for a global Green New Deal. “Unless the transition to a clean energy economy is based on unifying politics, this next iteration will also prove another adventure in pyrrhic rhetoric,” Foster warned. A decade ago, unemployment was high and the price of oil was also skyrocketing. While neither are true today, he noted, inequality remains terrible and working conditions throughout the entire economy feel even more precarious.

The Sunrise Movement plans to launch a campaign in March to build more support for the Green New Deal, with events planned in states like Michigan, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. “We’ve been working to get a lot of support from the grassroots and the grasstops,” Weber said, “and we’re going to keep doing that going forward.”

Written by: Rachel M. Cohen