President Roberts sent out a robocall on December 21, 2018 to update everyone on the status of our ongoing pension fight. If you have any questions please feel free to call us at 703-291-2400.
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A Coal Miner Asks: Why Aren’t Kentucky Lawmakers Doing More For Us?
Source: Courier Journal
My name is Carl Shoupe from Lynch in Harlan County. I married a Benham woman, so I now reside in this great little community that is struggling, much like my fellow miners in coal counties throughout Eastern Kentucky.
I’d like to explain a little about the dreaded coal miner’s disease of black lung, national legislation that pays the health care each month for those miners with the disease, and other legislation that can improve the lives of miners and our communities.
First, it is a known fact that men and women have been mining coal for well over 100 years here in these mountains. We have contributed to winning two World Wars and keeping the lights on in the United States.
And it is no secret the coal industry is in a downturn with coal companies shutting down mines, filing bankruptcy and putting thousands of coal miners out of work or sick, or both. In Central Appalachia, 1 in 5 veteran miners have black lung disease, and younger miners are getting sick at higher rates than ever before, too.
The support received by miners with black lung disease is provided through the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, paid for by a fee levied on each ton of coal sold. Unfortunately, this trust fund is presently threatened financially to the point that if something isn’t done by our legislators in Washington, miners with this dreaded disease or their surviving dependents will no longer receive the benefits they are entitled to. The fee that funds these benefits is set to decrease by over half at the end of the year unless Congress moves to extend the fee, or strengthen it as is really needed.
We coal miners, our fathers and our grandfathers had to fight for anything and everything that we’ve ever gotten from coal companies. So we can’t quit now. Our forefathers literally fought for benefits received. But times have changed, and at this time in history we can turn to other methods. One method is through contacting our representatives in Washington, D.C.
We must start now. Already 15 cities and counties in Kentucky have passed local resolutions asking Sen. Mitch McConnell to support legislation in the U.S. Congress to strengthen the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund. As usual, the National Mining Association opposes anything that will help the coal miner. We can’t let them block this legislation. These coal companies weren’t concerned when we were 2 miles underground, working in dust so thick that sometimes you could barely see your buddy’s lights. It’s time again to fight for the benefits we have earned and deserve.
Those local resolutions also ask that Congress pass the RECLAIM Act. Just sitting in a fund in Washington, D.C. is hundreds of millions of dollars for the purpose of fixing our mountains and communities that have been torn apart by mining. The RECLAIM Act would make sure this money is passed on to coal communities that need it. This money could employ thousands of miners who have been laid off by the coal industry to work on infrastructure, cleaning up waterways and land, and promoting economic development.
And the resolutions have one more request: that Congress protect UMWA pensions so UMWA miners can continue supporting themselves and their families.
Sen. McConnell is dragging his feet on these three pieces of legislation! Congress won’t do anything unless Mitch McConnell, Hal Rogers and our Kentucky members of Congress hear from us. These men say they support our communities, so why don’t they show it by passing this legislation?
Fellow coal miners, spouses, businesses, and friends: we need you to call Washington (use the capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121) and ask these legislators to support and pass these bills that are extremely necessary for us to live good lives and preserve our homeland of Eastern Kentucky.
We need to strengthen the Black Lung Trust, help us coal miners maintain a decent income, and make sure we have a secure retirement. This is not too much for us to ask, considering all we have done for this great nation.
Carl Shoupe is a disabled and retired coal miner and member of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth.
Union Pay Raises Irk Tomassetti – Some increases exceed 3 percent limit; minimum wage set at $10 per hour
Source: Altoona Mirror
HOLLIDAYSBURG — A new contract for a group of unionized Blair County employees allocates some raises beyond the typical 3 percent in 2019 and sets the county’s minimum wage at $10 per hour.
Blair County commissioners voted 2-to-1 Tuesday to approve the three-year contract with the United Mine Workers of America representing 226 employees in 21 county and court-related offices and departments.
The contract approval occurred during the weekly commissioners meeting, shortly after commissioners voted 2-to-1 to adopt a $55.31 million budget for 2019.
As anticipated, the budget keeps real estate taxes at 3.925 mills, meaning a tax bill of $392.50 for someone with a property valued at $100,000.
Commissioners Chairman Bruce Erb and Ted Beam Jr. voted for the UMWA contact and the budget while Commissioner Terry Tomassetti voted against them.
At the beginning of the 2019 budget-planning process, Tomassetti suggested considering raises to counter turnover and failed to get a supportive second vote. Erb and Beam told Tomassetti that they preferred to wait for the results of a salary and job classification study and its recommendations.
Tomassetti later narrowed his request to county attorneys, with support from President Judge Elizabeth Doyle, District Attorney Richard Consiglio and Chief Public Defender Russ Montgomery.
But Erb and Beam still declined to consider the idea, saying they didn’t want to “pick and choose” any specific department or group of employees for raises beyond the typical 3 percent.
“That is indeed what we have here today,” Tomassetti said Tuesday when casting his vote against the contract.
In addition to 3 percent raises for 2019, the union contract includes $1,500 increases for corporals and sergeants and $1,000 raises for deputies in the sheriff’s department.
For 77 union-represented employees making less than $10 an hour, the new contract translates into a 28 percent increase for employees earning $7.25 an hour, the state’s minimum wage.
“For some of those people, that’s huge,” said Human Resources Director Katherine Swigart, who was involved in the negotiations.
The new contract also increases longevity paid to veteran 911 Center staff members by adding $1.50 an hour for lead communicators and 40 cents an hour more for telecommunicators when working as trainers.
Erb and Beam rejected Tomassetti’s criticism of their support for the contract.
“This was a negotiated contract,” Beam said. “The county and the union negotiated fairly, and I accepted it.”
In exchange for the outlined wage changes, Erb said the union consented to other items in the contract, including ones that could help reduce costs in the future. For instance, the union contract sets 2.5 percent annual raises for 2020 and 2021. So if the salary study generates recommendations prompting commissioners to consider higher raises in those years, the union employees get the raises outlined in their contract.
Otherwise, it would take both sides to agree to a wage reopener, Erb said.
Tomassetti said the commissioners were advised in late August of the proposed additional increases being considered at the bargaining table. He said he chose not to reveal the proposal after checking with legal counsel who said that doing so could generate a union grievance.
Tomassetti also pointed to a “lack of equity” within the contract which also refines rules for overtime, vacation procedures and sick leave.
The proposed contract, Swigart said, is reflective of the departments with representatives at the bargaining table: juvenile probation, sheriff and the 911 Center.
Some unidentified county employees, prior to a recent union meeting, posted notices in the courthouse urging UMWA members to vote no and send union leaders back to negotiate a better version. But the union members OK’d the proposed contract.
The Mirror tried Tuesday to reach the county UMWA union leader and did not receive a return phone call.
Sheriff James Ott said he had heard that the union was making an effort on better pay through negotiations. A couple of weeks ago, Ott told commissioners that his department, just like other county departments, regularly loses staff because of low pay.
“I’m appreciative, and I’m sure the staff is appreciative that the county is supporting this,”Ott said of the union contract. “But even with the amounts in the contract, the pay is still less than it should be and it’s not enough to keep people from leaving.”
Ott said he has hired 18 deputies this year to fill vacant positions and is now looking for a 19th deputy.
The deputies were making $13.74 per hour this year, Ott said, so with the additional $1,000 increment and the 3 percent raise, their 2019 pay calculates to $14.65 an hour. Deputies typically work a 35-hour work week.
Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 946-7456.
Sen. Duckworth Meets with Retired IL Mine Workers
Source: KFVS12
ILLINOIS (KFVS) – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth met with retired Illinois mine workers on Tuesday, December 11.
She met with mine workers from Coulterville, Du Quoin, Millstadt and Taylorville to discuss how to protect their pensions.
“Our mine workers worked hard every day in difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions because they wanted to provide a good life for their families and they knew that when they were no longer able to work, their pensions would be there for them,” Sen. Duckworth said. “Now, their pensions are at risk through no fault of their own. Congress needs to fix this crisis immediately and protect the pensions these workers were promised.”
The mine workers, who are retired members of the United Mine Workers of America, traveled to Capitol Hill on Monday to ask Congress to help save the UMWA 1974 Pension Plan, which provides monthly benefits to retired miners, to miners who are disabled as a result of workplace injury and to their surviving spouses.
The pension plan provides benefits to roughly 91,000 retriees and in 2015, Illinois retirees received $64 million in pension payments from the plan. However, because of the 2008 financial crisis and the surge of bankruptcies in the coal industry, the plan is reportedly no longer on sound financial footing.
Written by: Amber Ruch
Mission Coal agreement sets $145M floor for met coal bankruptcy auction
Source: Market Intelligence
Mission Coal Co. LLC is seeking approval to enter into a stalking horse purchase agreement featuring a $145 million credit bid for the metallurgical coal company’s assets.
The company’s debtor-in-possession lenders agreed to provide a stalking horse bid in the form of credit and set a floor price for auctioning the company’s Maple Eagle and Oak Grove metallurgical coal mining facilities, according to a Dec. 5 court filing. Through its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, Mission is seeking to facilitate the sale of substantially all of its assets.
“Time is of the essence,” Mission wrote in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama motion seeking approval of the bidding process. The company faces milestones under its financing facility that, without extension, could lead to a need to refinance at a higher cost or shut down operations.
“The sale would resolve these Chapter 11 cases, cut off the expense of bankruptcy, and permit the debtors to distribute the value generated by the sale of assets to their stakeholders,” the filing states. “The debtors hope and expect to continue discussions with creditors regarding their sale and restructuring efforts and obtain substantial consensus regarding the Chapter 11 process quickly.”
Mission Coal was formed in early 2018 by consolidating operations acquired by ERP Environmental Fund Inc. through distressed asset buys in 2015 and 2016. The company picked up mines relatively cheaply from Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. as that company exited the U.S. coal sector and acquired assets from Walter Energy Inc. in exchange for assuming the liabilities associated with the mines when Walter went through its own bankruptcy reorganization. The top assets of Walter Energy emerged from bankruptcy under the control of Warrior Met Coal Inc., which is now expressing some interest in Mission’s bankruptcy sale.
“We’ve always talked about the fact that those assets … are right in our backyard, and they would be a good fit for us. That has nothing to do with where we’re sitting on liquidity right now,” Warrior CEO Walter Scheller said on an Oct. 31 earnings call. “But we’re surely going to be paying close attention to what’s going on.”
The stalking horse purchase includes the acquisition of certain assets of the company’s Pinnacle coal mine, which was recently closed. Under the agreement, a buyer would have the right between signing and closing to determine what assets of Pinnacle and the company’s Seminole Alabama Mining Complex LLC it would like to acquire, according to the court motion.
The buyer of the assets would also be taking on potential expenses related to reclamation, assumed contracts, various taxes and other liabilities. However, under the plan, the buyer would not be assuming some other liabilities associated with workers compensation and certain other employee-related liabilities including obligations stemming from the Black Lung Act and a collective bargaining agreement with the company’s unionized workforce. However, the asset purchase agreement is contingent on either the United Mine Workers of America waiving the successor clause in its agreement or the bankruptcy court approving rejection of the agreement.
The proposed stalking horse agreement does not include a breakup fee or expense reimbursement and is expected to allow Mission to maximize the value of its assets by market-testing the stalking horse bid through an auction process in which the highest bidder can take on the assets. Mission Coal has proposed a bid deadline of Jan. 21, 2019. An auction would be held, if necessary, Feb. 27, 2019, under the proposal.
Those lost in Robena Mine disaster remembered
Source: Herald Standard
MASONTOWN – Each coal miner killed in an accident or by black lung has a ripple effect that impacts countless others, UMWA International President Cecil Roberts told the crowd gathered on a chilly Thursday morning to remember the Robena Mine disaster 56 years ago.
Roberts pointed to the estimated 250,000 miners who have died over the years in mine disasters or from medical problems, and then extrapolated that figure to show the millions of relatives and friends who felt the loss.
At Robena, the watches on the 37 men killed Dec. 6, 1962, stopped ticking between 1:03 and 1:06 p.m., signifying the time of the underground blast near the memorial site positioned along Route 21 in Monongahela Township just west of Masontown. The explosion is thought to have been caused by a buildup of methane gas that was ignited by a spark from mine equipment.
Families gathered outside the mine on a frigid afternoon that day waiting for word on the fate of the workers inside.
“The very next morning, a wife became a widow,” Roberts told the crowd gathered for the memorial. “The next morning, a child had lost a father.”
One of those families that felt the loss was that of Judy Package, whose second cousin, Albert Bronakoski, was the youngest to die in the explosion. Bronakoski, a recent Mapletown grad, was just 18 and working a temporary job in the mine while on break while studying engineering at Penn State University. As one of the newest hires, he drew straws with another man to see who would work in the mine that day, Package recalled.
Package remembers the anguish the tragedy caused Bronakoski’s parents, Marcella and Adam, and the rest of the family.
“My mother was extremely upset because she was really good friends with Albert’s family,” she said.
Package, of Fayette City, was also 18 when Bronakoski died in the mine. She often thinks about how she has been able to enjoy adulthood while Bronakoski was struck down so young.
“I think it’s nice that they still remember the miners. And it helps me remember Albert,” Package said. “It just makes you feel bad you’re still around and he was so young. He didn’t get to experience life.”
The disaster was a rallying call for mine safety, and Dec. 6 was later recognized as National Miners Day. As he has in past years, Roberts used the memorial service as an opportunity to remember the dead, while also promoting important union initiatives, such as guaranteed health-care benefits and pensions for retirees.
Roberts stalked through the crowd giving a fiery speech in which he noted the union’s successful efforts to encourage the federal government two years ago to protect health-care benefits for retirees. He said the work has “saved lives,” as the union now is turning its attention to finding a long-term solution to fix its ailing pension fund.
“Sometimes I get angry when I put these things in perspective,” Roberts said of bankrupt coal companies that have been able to walk away from their pension obligations. “And maybe you should, too.”
During the ceremony, the names of the 37 men who died in the disaster as well as the names of two men who died in another explosion at Robena on Oct. 2, 1962, were read by Local 1980 President Marlon Whoolery. He also echoed the need for the union to persist in its push for retirement benefits.
“We want to fight for today’s miner and yesterday’s retiree,” Whoolery said.
Ed Yankovich, who is retiring later this month as UMWA International’s vice president for District 2, served as master of ceremonies. He noted the 12 rescue teams from across that region that ventured into Robena to save lives, but only recovered bodies after six days of searching.
“When these things happen, brave men come to the rescue,” Yankovich said. “Let’s not just remember the men who died. Let’s think of these brave souls who tried to rescue those men. They’re the heroes of the labor movement.”
Union Plus Scholarship
Source: Union Plus
Tell your union friends and family: the new Union Plus Scholarship application is open!
Since 1991, the Union Plus Scholarship Program has awarded more than $4.3 million to students of working families who want to begin or continue their post-secondary education.
Start your application online ahead of the Jan 31, 2019 deadline.
Coal miners: Westmoreland bosses for naughty list, not bonuses
Source: WyoFile
KEMMERER — Westmoreland Coal Company’s Nov. 26 bankruptcy motion that seeks to pay bonuses to mid-level “valued employees” is a “disgusting, despicable” act that ignores actual miners, a union official said last week.
Westmoreland is asking a Texas bankruptcy judge to let it reward 243 of its 1,723 U.S. employees with a total of up to $1.48 million a quarter to ensure the company operates smoothly during its bankruptcy transition. The “valued-employee program” would give up to $50,000 per quarter to some individuals — “rank and file employees” the company says — who have an intimate understanding of operational intricacies, leases, coal assets, customer relationships and vendor contracts.
Rewarding management over workers, “it’s appalling,” Michael Dalpiaz, a vice president with the United Mine Workers of America, said in a telephone interview. “They can’t make ends meet yet find enough money [to give bonuses] to the people who drove the bus in the ditch.”
The motion comes as Westmoreland seeks relief from its financial woes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a process that will resolve the fate of the Kemmerer Mine and its approximately 300 workers. The 13,400-acre shovel-and-truck operation is the fuel source for the neighboring Naughton Power Plant.
Naughton, facing its own troubles, plans to cease burning coal at one of its three units by the end of January 2019.
Worries about the twin economic pillars of the Kemmerer-Diamondville community cloud a season normally marked by joy, celebration and unity. Instead, there’s worry, rumor and even anger stemming from years of emigration.
Fully 16 percent of Kemmerer denizens have left since a zenith of 3,273 residents in 1980, a loss that can be seen in boarded-up downtown businesses, dilapidated houses that can’t be sold, and the resignation among some.
Dalpiaz claims the company’s delinquency has so hamstrung some employees that its actions are Grinch-like. “Now his children don’t have anything for Christmas,” Dalpiaz said of one miner.
Uninterested in playing victims, a group of 50 or so residents gathered around a bonfire in the Kemmerer Triangle on Thursday evening, with their children singing Christmas carols, sharing hot chocolate and cookies and greeting Santa Claus. In the face of withering obstacles, Kemmerer Mayor Anthony “Tony” Tomassi welcomed the jolly old elf who proclaimed a time-out on pessimism.
“Santa has lots of love for the people of the community and Kemmerer,” Santa told WyoFile. “I think Kemmerer is thriving.”
Santa faces reality on the Triangle
Santa’s world and reality collide on the near-vacant sidewalks of downtown Kemmerer where there’s little hustle and no bustle during the morning rush hour. Westmoreland’s latest legal motion, which follows reports the company paid executives bonuses before bankruptcy and that pensions, health benefits and tax payments are at risk, has spread ill will among many.
“It’s really scary,” said Lorna Gunter who lives in a modest home on the outskirts of town with her retired miner husband Roger. He worked as an equipment operator at the Kemmerer Mine for 37 years, receives a pension and Social Security and doesn’t want his retirement reduced.
“They just told us there’s a possibility they could cut our pensions,” Roger Gunter said in the couple’s neat, sparsely decorated living room. “If they cut mine out, I’d have to do a lot of changes.
“You worked all your life,” Gunter said of his pension plan. “It should be locked in ’til you die.”
WyoFile didn’t receive a response to a phone call to Westmoreland seeking comment, but the company’s motion in the bankruptcy court outlines reasons for seeking the payments to its valued employees. Those 243 persons are not “insider” executives who have any control over major strategic business decisions. Rather, they are employees whose retention is critical to preserving and maximizing shareholder value, the motion says.
More than 100 employees have left Westmoreland Coal Company since June, when it announced bridge financing and anticipated bankruptcy filing, the motion says. The company “contemplates a going-concern sale” of its coal-mining assets and hopes for court approval of bidding and a sale after Dec. 28.
The valued-employee bonuses are necessary because the key workers may jump ship since they don’t know whether a buyer will keep them on, the motion says. The employees face added responsibilities and hours “without any corresponding increase in compensation,” the filing says. The bonuses would replace “historical compensation” that included an annual cash-based award program for some, the company wrote.
The $1.48 million per quarter works out to an average individual award of $6,000 every three months for each of the 243 valued employees, the filing states. Under the proposal, the maximum any one employee could receive in bonuses would be $50,000 a quarter or $200,000 in a year.
In the year ending Aug. 30, 2018, Englewood, Colorado-headquartered Westmoreland Coal, the sixth largest coal-mining enterprise in North America, earned $850 million in revenue. But by its bankruptcy filing in October its operations at 19 coal mines in six states and Canada owed $1.1 billion.
Such high-stakes financing decisions don’t convince Gunter, the retired miner, that workers’ needs should be brushed aside. With millions in revenues, “they ought to be able to put some in a pension,” he said.
Dalpiaz had stronger words. “They only consider 240 [employees] valuable,” he said in a telephone interview from his office in Price, Utah. “It’s disgusting, despicable that they would even do that — give bonuses to the people who drove this company to bankruptcy.
“They identified some 1,500 employees as not valuable,” he said. “It’s criminal as far as I’m concerned. They’re a circus of clowns managing the place. They ought to lock these guys up.”
Boosters face uncertainty
Regardless of the bonuses to “valued employees,” larger worries hang over Kemmerer, retired miners and community members say. Chief among them is that the mine itself would close.
“If they close it, Kemmerer will die,” said Lyle Beebe, a retired miner with 27 years of work at the Kemmerer Mine.
“Kemmerer would just about blow away,” added Ken Hysell, who retired from the mine in 1999 after 31 years.
“Kemmerer will go down the drain,” Lorna Gunter said.
Mayor Tomassi provided a tempered view from his office at E&L Motors in Diamondville where he is a co-owner. “Somebody’s going to dig coal there, mine that mine,” he told WyoFile in his spotless showroom office, surrounded by shiny new cars and trucks but no customers.
“I’m absolutely convinced the mine is going to be open,” he said. The coal at Kemmerer is high in energy and low in sulfur and the mine has the adjacent, although shrinking, power-plant customer next door, plus industrial clients just down the road and rail line in southwest Wyoming.
The mine also enjoys state backing. State lawmakers earlier this year approved a measure that earmarked $15 million to relocate a highway north of the Kemmerer Mine, a move that would allow mining to expand.
“They’re going to produce,” Tomassi said of the mine. “At what level, I don’t know.
“I think the whole community is worried,” he said of the economic outlook. “It affects everybody.”
His own business is “relatively slow,” he said. “If you’re a miner, are you going to come in and buy a car right now?” he asked.
Miners stop thinking about upgrading their vehicles a year before their union contracts are renewed, he said. The last full contract lasted six years and current agreements are short-term, he said. “They want to wait until they get their next contract before they make commitments,” Tomassi said.
He wants a speedy resolution to the bankruptcy. “As a community, we would like to get it settled and move on.”
To “move on,” Tomassi’s staff at town government recently released “Kickstart Kemmerer,” a 20-year comprehensive plan. It doesn’t anticipate much population growth but hopes for a diversified economy and a small-town atmosphere that takes advantage of the natural and man-made attractions.
Blue-ribbon trout streams flow nearby, the town has a rec center and golf course. It’s considered in one ranking to be the second-safest community in Wyoming, “For a small community we have lots of amenities,” Tomassi said.
Some residents are skeptical. “They should have kickstarted 20 years ago,” said the retired miner Hysell.
“You’d think with that mine, all the gas plants, Kemmerer would be pretty busy,” said one merchant who asked to be described only as a businessman. “Kemmerer doesn’t have that much to offer. Town’s not big enough.”
For example, his son drives his granddaughter to Park City, Utah several times a week for gymnastics lessons. Energy workers would rather commute 60 or 70 miles and live on a ranch or in a larger town than Kemmerer, he said. “Evanston – they’ve got Walmarts, things like that,” he said.
It’s not just miners who affect the downturn, its other energy industries as well, Tomassi said. He talks regularly with managers of many of the energy businesses, he said.
“What we really want is we want you to bring your people to Kemmerer,” he said he tells those executives. “We want you to have your people live here. That would be our number-one goal.”
The pitch is not always embraced. They say, “you have one grocery store, you don’t have two,” Tomassi said. It’s a classic chicken-egg scenario, he said.
Retirees keep up their spirits and say their community is a welcoming place. “The people are so friendly it takes a half hour to get your mail,” retired miner Dan Gromke said. He teaches yoga three times a week to seniors.
Gunter, whose great grandfather homesteaded on nearby Oyster Ridge in 1898, still hunts. He shares jerky from an antelope he shot this fall. He pays dues to the union and attends monthly meetings.
“I don’t have to,” he said, “but I like to help the miners out.”
If he could give the company bosses advice, he said he would tell them “don’t run over the employees, don’t give money to the higher-ups.”
Retired from Kemmerer coal mine, workers plead for pensions in company bankruptcy
Source: Casper Star Tribune
Perry Norris, 65, worked at the Kemmerer coal mine for 40 years. For four decades he worked three shift rotations. He broke an elbow at the mine in southern Wyoming, broke his back and picked up a persistent cough from years of inhaling dust, he explained in a handwritten letter submitted Monday to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston, where Westmoreland is moving rapidly through its Chapter 11 restructuring.
His reason for writing was to object to Westmoreland potentially cutting pensions and health care benefits for retired miners like him.
“I am 65 and my wife is 64,” Norris wrote. “We are barely surviving on our social security and retirement together.”
Similar letters told similar stories: 30, 40, 46 years of work in Kemmerer and fear that income those workers had believed would carry them through retirement would disappear with the approval of a judge in Texas.
Westmoreland Coal Co., which owns the Kemmerer mine and three mines in Montana, filed for bankruptcy in early October, with a lender already on hand and a plan to restructure $90 million in debt. The company, which is one of the oldest coal firms in the country, would also sell off core assets.
In bankruptcy filings this week, the company requested permission from the court to offer incentives to 243 managers, averaging $6,000 per upper-level manager. The company would like to set aside $1.5 million per quarter through the period of bankruptcy for bonuses.
The company argued that incentives — which are not uncommon during bankruptcies — would keep mangers from leaving due to the company’s financial insolvency. Bonuses were also requested of bankruptcy judges in the high-profile Chapter 11 cases of Peabody Energy and Alpha Natural Resources, large Wyoming coal firms whose bankruptcies bookended Wyoming’s dramatic coal downturn.
Westmoreland was the first coal firm to seek bankruptcy protections since 2016, when the largest firms in Wyoming buckled under debt in a narrowing coal market. The pressures that led to those bankruptcies in the Powder River Basin have continued — competition with cheap natural gas, an increase in renewable power on the grid, customer preference for green energy — and they’ve pressured Westmoreland.
But the United Mine Workers of America have protested Westmoreland’s plea for relief at the expense of miners who bargained their retirement plans over decades of work in southern Wyoming.
Weeks after Westmoreland’s bankruptcy filing, the United Mine Workers of America filed an objection to the coal firm’s reorganization plan over retiree benefits. The union argued that the company’s progress was unnecessarily rushed and that Westmoreland’s lender would oversee employee bargaining agreements and benefits.
The union and the company had spatted via letters in the runup to the bankruptcy over this very issue. The union argued Westmoreland had an obligation. The company pressed that economic conditions had changed for the worse.
“The unfortunate reality is that Westmoreland Coal Company and its subsidiaries cannot survive as a going concern without material changes to the retiree medical benefits currently offered to union employees and retirees,” a Sept. 18 letter from the company to the union’s lawyers states. “We will be filing for Chapter 11 protection shortly and we will have no choice but to address this pressing issue.”
The Wall Street Journal reported Nov. 9 that Westmoreland had paid $10.2 million in bonuses to its executives in the year before filing for bankruptcy, a point noted in many of the miners’ letters.
Miners are looking at the possibility of poverty, wrote Steven Hutchinson of Utah, who said he worked at the Kemmerer mine for 41 years before retiring.
“Please be wise and have (compassion) on the worker, his family,” he wrote. “Hold Westmoreland to the (their) moral responsibilities and commitments.”
Calls to Westmoreland’s offices in Colorado were not returned by press time.
The Kemmerer mine employed 286 miners as of June. The union is currently bargaining for a new contract, a process union members report has been slowed by the bankruptcy.
Pacificorp, the lone buyer of coal from the Kemmerer mine, has also lodged a protest to some of Westmoreland’s bankruptcy plans. The Oregon-based utility, parent company to Rocky Mountain Power, said that if Kemmerer were to abruptly shut down it would “advance the interest of private financial creditors over public utilities and their customers.”
The mine and the power plant are significant drivers of local income, as well as two of the few employment opportunities in the rural town.
Jim Vilos worked at the mine for 41 years. His letter to the judge recalls working in subzero temperatures that numbed the feet and hands.
“It was our job and we done it,” he said. “We the miners kept our end of the deal.”
Written by: Heather Richards
Westmoreland Coal Asks Bankruptcy Judge Permission to Pay Bonuses for Top Managers
Source: KTVQ.com
BILLINGS- Westmoreland Coal, the owner of three coal mines in Montana and one in Wyoming, is asking a federal bankruptcy judge for permission to pay bonuses to 243 of its top managers.
In a filing this week, Englewood, Colo.-based Westmoreland said the bonuses would total $1.5 million per quarter as the bankruptcy proceeds and average $6,000 per employee.
In making its case, Westmoreland said it cannot afford to risk losing the valued employees, whose continued employment is crucial to ongoing restructuring efforts.
Westmoreland, one of the nation’s oldest coal companies, owns the Rosebud Mine at Colstrip along with the Savage and Abasloka Mines in Montana and the Kemmerer Mine in Wyoming. The company has a total of 1,743 employees.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Oct. 9 in Houston as it attempts to restructure more than $1.4 billion of debt. Westmoreland shares traded at 7 cents at market close Thursday.
Environmental groups and union miners are crying foul over the proposed bonuses.
Mike Scott of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign says the bonuses won’t go to those who need it the most.
“It doesn’t appear that any of these bonuses are going to miners. It seems to us those are the people who really need to be supported right now as coal in general is facing a steep decline in its market. Really what Westmoreland is doing right now is wrong,” said Scott, who is based in Billings.
Scott also said the uncertainty surrounding Westmoreland’s future also poses a challenge to groups trying to keep tabs on the company’s plans and commitments.
“In this restructuring, it appears they are talking about just liquidating, so we don’t even know who’s going to own this mine in a couple of months. That makes it really hard to deal with things like new permitting and expansion at the mine, because it’s hard to say who’s going to be in charge of implementing what they propose,” he said.
The International Union of Operating Engineers, which represents approximately 300 miners at Colstrip, told Q2 News it’s keeping a close eye on the company’s bankruptcy but has not decided if it will try to intervene.
Montana IUOE Business Manager Steve Gross said union members at Colstrip voted earlier this month to extend their current contract with Westmoreland through March of next year, in hopes that many of the questions about the company’s future will be decided by then.
In Wyoming, the United Mine Workers, which represents union workers at the company’s Kemmerer Mine, has intervened in the bankruptcy raising concerns that Westmoreland is using its bankruptcy to cut health care benefits for retirees.
Q2 left a message for Westmoreland officials Thursday afternoon but has not heard back.
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