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Source: Union Plus
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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’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.”
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.”
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
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.
Written by: Jay Kohn
Source: Greene County Messenger
A memorial service will take place on December 6 to honor the miners who died 56 years ago in an explosion at U.S. Steel Corp’s Robena Mine No. 3.
The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) will begin the service at 11 a.m. at the Robena Monument on Route 21 in Monongahela Township, just west of Hatfield’s Ferry Power Station.
UMWA District 2 and the Local Union 1980 will conduct the service, which takes place each year to honor the 37 miners who died in one of Greene County’s worst mining disasters. The memorial service also fulfills a promise by the UMWA to never forget the men who died, as well as their families.
“Robena was the impetus for the development of the Mine Safety and Health Act in 1969,” said Edward Yankovich, International District 2 vice president. “This service reminds us year after year of the sacrifices of these men for a common good no matter how tragic it was.”
The public is invited to attend and the UMWA has extended a special invitation to the union’s membership and families.
The keynote speaker at this year’s event will be UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts. Also scheduled to speak is Levi Allen, the secretary and treasurer for UMWA International. Yankovich will serve as master of ceremonies.
According to the UMWA, at about 1 p.m. on December 6, 1962, an explosion ripped through Robena Mine, starting from a point about 650 feet below ground and about two miles from the base of Frosty Run Shaft in Carmichaels. The force of the explosion was so strong it knocked down men who were working more than two miles away.
One hundred and seventy men were in the mine at the time of the explosion. The 37 miners who died were members of a continuous miner crew working in the 8 left 4 main section.
The explosion was believed to have been caused by a buildup of methane gas, resulting from a temporary shutdown of ventilation fans. The gas was ignited by a spark from mine equipment.
The explosion at Robena was the worst mine disaster to have occurred in Greene County since May 19, 1928, when an explosion at Mather Mine took the lives of 195 miners.
The 37 men who lost their lives at the December 6 explosion were: Adam Andrews Jr., Norman A. Benninghoff, William J. Blacka, James H. Boyd, Albert Bronakoski, Nicola Caromano, Albert Cavalcante, Frank Hainzer Jr., James W. Hribal, Frank Hudock, Andy J. Hvizdos, John Karlyak, Andrew K. “Kino” Kanyuch, Arthur Labons, Charles Laucher, Alex Marra, John C. Martoncik, Elmer W. McCann, Orrin E. McDowell, Ernest Mollica, Homer F. Pitts, Samuel Rain, Franklin H. Rifenburg, Allen J. Sanner, John M. Santer, Charles J. Sebeck, Charles J. Seper, George L. Speelman, John J. St. Clair, Hurley C. Stalnaker, Mike E. Stanik, John H. Steech, Joseph V. Tokish, Charles S. Van Divner, William H.R. Wright, Eugene G. Zuzak and Paul C. Zvolenski.
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Source: The Intelligencer – Wheeling Register News
Students can stay warmer at the bus stop, sled longer when the snow falls and better enjoy watching Christmas parades, thanks to the Winter Warmup for Kids.
Students can stay warmer at the bus stop, sled longer when the snow falls and better enjoy watching Christmas parades, thanks to the Winter Warmup for Kids.
A program of the United Mine Workers of America Local 1473, Winter Warmup is providing 300 coats to children in need this year. The coats, along with hats and scarves, are being distributed at eight local schools in Ohio and West Virginia.
Local members on Tuesday presented coats to staff at the Bellaire school, while Ohio County Schools received donations Monday. Others school districts receiving coats this year include Bridgeport, Martins Ferry and Barnesville. Central Elementary in Moundsville also is receiving a donation.
John Miller, recording secretary for Local 1473 and a Mount Olivet resident, said he started the program five years ago after he drove by a school and noticed a young child not wearing a coast despite it being cold outside.
“He didn’t have a coat, but I did have a coat on and I wanted to do something about it,” Miller said.
Since then the UMWA, with help from Boscov’s and donations of money and coats from groups like Trinity Lutheran Church in South Wheeling, Christ Lutheran Church in Mozart, Align HR and UMWA members, have given away 1,300 coats to various elementary schools in the past five years.
Miller said the principals and staff members of each school determine which students are in need of the coats. They give Miller the sizes needed and how many are for boys or girls. Miller then gives that information to Boscov’s, which then compiles the needed coats for pickup by the UMWA.
“It doesn’t matter how many they need,” Miller said of a school. “If need they 50 coats, we get them 50 coats.”
Donnie Samms, UMWA at-large international president and a Uniontown, Pennsylvania, resident, said Miller has the full backing of the UMWA and his local members for the program.
“We’ve always tried to be involved in the community,” Samms said of the union. “This local is the best example of that. It takes a lot of heart and a lot of work.”
Ritchie Elementary School Principal John Jorden said UMWA and Miller do an exceptional job in providing for Ritchie students, and he has been told this year’s contribution to the school’s students may be the biggest donation yet.
“I’ve heard that they’ve outdone themselves,” Jorden said. “They always come through for our kids, and I can’t say enough about what a great effort this is.”
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Westmoreland Coal Co. paid eight of its current and former executives more than $10.2 million in salary, bonuses and severance in the 12 months before the coal-mining company filed for bankruptcy protection in October.
Executives at Westmoreland collected additional compensation in the form of benefits and expense reimbursements over the same one-year period, according to a Thursday filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston. The Englewood, Colo.-based company also listed more than $3.8 million in so-called retainer payments and management fees to its directors.
Bankruptcy rules require companies that seek protection from creditors in chapter 11 to disclose payments made to insiders during the 12-month period prior to the bankruptcy filing. Westmoreland paid more than $5.88 million in bonuses and $2.27 million in salary to current and former executives, the filing said. Nearly $1.98 million in severance was paid to the company’s former chief executive officer and president and chief operating officer.
The bonuses are described in court papers as incentive awards. Financially distressed companies across industries regularly pay these types of bonuses to executives in the months leading up to a bankruptcy filing.
“This is how chapter 11 works,” said Jared Ellias, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings who studies corporate governance in bankruptcy and is the author of a forthcoming academic paper on the payment of corporate bonuses in bankruptcy.
Westmoreland’s senior lenders, who are funding the chapter 11, consented to the bonus payments before the bankruptcy filing, a person familiar with the company’s restructuring told The Wall Street Journal on Friday. The cash bonuses are intended to retain executives who had participated in a long-term incentive program that had been paid in stock but that is now essentially worthless in chapter 11, this person said. Westmoreland’s stock was previously listed on the Nasdaq and is expected to be cancelled in chapter 11, court papers say.
Westmoreland interim Chief Executive Michael Hutchinson received more than $2.36 million in bonus payments, while Chief Operating Officer Joseph Micheletti received $1,240,200 in bonus payments, court papers say. The board appointed Mr. Hutchinson interim chief executive in November 2017. He had served as an independent director since 2012, according to the company.
Chapter 11 creates incentives for distressed companies to pay executive bonuses prior to a bankruptcy filing, Professor Ellias said. Such bonuses can, in effect, help retain top managers during a bankruptcy. Meanwhile, it can be more difficult to award such bonuses while a company is in chapter 11 because such payments are reviewed by a judge and could bring a legal challenge from creditors or labor unions, he said.
Westmoreland filed for bankruptcy protection on Oct. 9, listing about $1.4 billion in debt. The company is seeking concessions from its union employees and retirees. The coal-mining company employs about 1,732 workers overall. Westmoreland is party to seven collective bargaining agreements covering about 900 employees, according to court papers filed in October.
“Once again, we find corporate executives looting coal companies and driving them into bankruptcy while setting up workers to take the brunt of the fall,” UMWA International President Cecil Roberts said in an email to the Journal.
“Just as we have in every bankruptcy that has hit our industry, we will fight for our active and retired members through every step of this bankruptcy,” Mr. Roberts said. “If Westmoreland thinks it can steamroll the UMWA it had better think again.”
Under a proposed chapter 11 plan, Westmoreland’s lenders have agreed to acquire the company’s Canadian operations and mines in New Mexico and Montana in a proposed transaction that would reduce the coal-mining company’s debt. The agreement is subject to higher bids. A handful of other U.S. mines owned by Westmoreland will be marketed separately during the bankruptcy, court papers say.
Written by: Jonathan Randles
A very special event Thursday at the Morgantown Marriott at Waterfront Place, took place.
In fact, you could call it an international event, a presidential inauguration, a non-political rally, a who’s who of labor leaders, a tribute to women, a civil rights gathering, a rockin’ country music concert, a convention on family values and a church revival that would make any evangelist proud — all rolled into one.
That’s what happens when the membership of the United Mine Workers of America comes together for its inauguration of officers, including the president of the UMWA, Cecil Roberts.
With over 600 union “brothers and sisters” in attendance, as well as many family members of UMWA officers from across the United States and Canada — yes, it is an international union — the bond that connected those in attendance, as well as the thousands of union members on the job across North America, is a spirit of mutual trust, respect and commitment to a common cause.
It’s no wonder that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who also got his start in the UMWA, was present and spoke at Thursday’s event.
This is not the “wildcat strikers” and union protestors fighting against armed company “thugs” of the 1920s-1960s. No, this is a union dedicated to non-violent civil disobedience as taught by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. UMWA members have learned to win the good fight for justice, worker safety, fair wages and benefits — not through violence, but through perseverance.
Make no mistake: There is plenty of fight in these union members. But their strength comes in their shared values and their willingness to stand up for others, even those who are not members of the union.
Surprisingly, today’s UMWA has found that reaching across the political aisle can have very positive results when people put aside their differences for the common good.
Certainly, the UMWA has endorsed Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., for re-election because of his decades of championing issues important to coal miners, such as black lung benefits, retiree pensions and health care and coal mine safety.
But in what was surely a historic occasion, Republican Congressman David McKinley took center stage to a standing ovation for his tireless efforts to overturn Obama administration rules and regulations that were part of the “War on Coal.”
If that was’t impressive enough, the UMWA Constitution requires that at least one member of the union’s senior leadership team be an African-American. James Gibbs, who hails from southwestern Virginia, was sworn in for another term as an international at-large vice president.
But the UMWA didn’t stop there. Starting with this year’s union elections, at least one member of the senior leadership team must be a woman. As a result, during the inauguration of officers, Tanya James, a member of Local 9909 at Loveridge Mine in Marion County, was sworn in as an international auditor/teller.
In addition, the UMWA has pledged to fight for equal pay for equal work for women and require safe workplaces where women are afforded the same rights and respect as their union male counterparts.
Talk about promoting diversity. The UMWA has led the way in promoting equal rights for all.
The chief evangelist of the UMWA is none other than Roberts, a sixth-generation coal miner from Cabin Creek. He was re-elected to another five-year term, having already served 23 years as president, making his tenure in that post the second longest in the history of the UMWA. Roberts also serves as a vice president of the AFL-CIO.
A Vietnam veteran, Roberts also makes it a priority to honor and recognize the sacrifices that our nation’s veterans have made so our families and our communities can enjoy the liberties and freedoms that we all take for granted.
Although overall union membership in the United States has fallen to a low of 10.7 percent, compared to 20.1 percent in 1983, you have to credit unions like the UMWA for fighting for better wages and benefits, as well as safe work conditions — all of which has enabled much of the middle class in America to enjoy the standard of living that we do.
Source: Times West Virginian
The coal miners of West Virginia and Virginia dedicated their lives to mining the coal that powered our nation to greatness. Over 70 years ago, President Harry Truman recognized the important role our brave miners were playing in our economy and the ongoing war effort. He made a promise that the government would guarantee coal miners’ healthcare and pension benefits in return for their service.
Last year, after months of hard work and negotiations, we finally secured the healthcare benefits that our coal miners’ have earned. That would not have been possible without the miners themselves traveling to Washington, D.C. to attend countless hours of meetings and hearings to advocate for the benefits they were promised. This was an important win for coal country, but our work is not done yet. The pensions our miners have worked for over the years are still on the chopping block, and we are not going to stop until Washington makes good on President Truman’s promise to coal miners and their families.
Together, we introduced the bipartisan American Miners Pension Act to shore up the 1974 United Mine Workers of America Pension Plan. In the years we’ve spent fighting to save these hard-earned benefits, we’ve heard from thousands of miners and their families about the devastating impact the loss of these pensions would have on their families and their communities.
We couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, with each day that passes, miners face more uncertainty and often some tough choices as a result.
We’ve heard from retired miners, their wives and children who have shared their fear of being forced to choose between putting food on the table and paying their medical bills. These men and women aren’t asking for a handout. They just want the federal government to keep its word.
We will not sit idly by while Congress refuses to act and miners grow closer to making these cruel choices.
What we’re going to do is keep fighting until we pass the American Miners Pension Act, standing alongside miners, their families, their unions, and their communities who are all in this together.
What we’re not going to do is let political partisanship get in the way of doing what’s right for coal country. Just this month, we worked with Sen. Capito and several other Republican Senators who represent coal mining states to pass legislation improving early detection of black lung disease and complicated black lung. With President Trump’s signature earlier this month, that legislation is now law.
And we’re going to keep fighting for coal miners’ pensions with the same bipartisanship that was crucial to saving their healthcare benefits. The American Miners Pension Act is sponsored by coal-state senators of both parties. When it comes keeping the promise to America’s coal miners, we all play for the same team.
But the truth is, this fight is about more than pensions. It is about making sure our government keeps its promise. And it is about making sure that people who work hard can still get a fair deal in this country.
That is something worth believing in and worth fighting for.
West Virginia and Virginia coal miners are among the hardest working people in America. They have dedicated their lives to powering this country and keeping it the strongest in the world. We will continue fighting for a solution that is worthy of their sacrifice.
Joe Manchin is the senior U.S. Senator from West Virginia. Mark Warner is the senior U.S. Senator from Virginia.
Written by: Senators Joe Manchin and Mark Warner
Source: Ohio Valley Resource
Retired coal miners and coal community activists are on Capitol Hill this week urging action on two important issues for miners: pensions and black lung benefits. Advocates say funds supporting both pensions for retired miners and the federal benefits for those sickened by black lung disease are at risk if Congress does not act.
Pension Problem
A United Mine Workers of America spokesperson said the miners’ pension fund could become insolvent by 2022. Congress created a Joint Select Committee to shore up this and other similar pension funds that are in jeopardy. But UMWA spokesperson Phil Smith is concerned that the committee is not making enough progress. Smith said Congressional Democrats have proposed a potential solution but Republicans have not responded.
“They’ve had a few meetings and they’ve had a few hearings but they really didn’t hear much from workers,” he said.
If the miners’ pension fund goes under, it would be backed up by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. But lawmakers have expressed concern that the failure of large pension funds could in turn overwhelm the PBGC.
“Society at the end of the day, and taxpayers at the end of the day, are going to have to pick up that cost,” Smith warned.
Black Lung Fund
Retired Kentucky coal miner Larry Miller is also skeptical about whether the committee will find a solution to the miners’ pensions. And Miller is also concerned about what’s ahead for miners who depend on federally-supported black lung benefits.
Miller mined coal for more than 20 years and is on Capitol Hill this week talking to lawmakers about the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, which covers the costs for miners who worked for companies that have gone bankrupt.
The fund is supported by a tax paid by coal companies which is set to be reduced unless Congress intervenes. In June the Government Accountability Office found that the fund could be in financial trouble without Congressional action. The issue is personal for Miller, who has been diagnosed with stage one of black lung disease.
“The doctor said you could live like this the rest of your life and not see any lung impairment,” he said of the progressive disease, “or you could start to go down tomorrow.”
The Ohio Valley has seen a surge in cases of black lung disease. That will likely mean more demand for benefits from the trust fund, which is already in debt.
Miller said the prospect of reductions in both pensions and black lung benefits is a frightening one-two punch for miners and retirees. Coal miners who developed black lung rely on those benefits and their pensions to live because they can’t work and support themselves due to their illness.
“I based our retirement on social security and this pension. If we lose one leg of that retirement, pensions, we’re going to be looking at some tough financial decisions,” he said.
And he said those effects could ripple through the economies of many communities that have already lost jobs because of coal company bankruptcies.
Congress has until the end of the year to reinstate the tax supporting the black lung trust fund. The Joint Select Committee is to present its recommendations for shoring up multi-employer pensions by November 30th.
Written by: Becca Schimmel
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