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How Bankruptcy Code Factors Into Lost Benefits For Westmoreland Retirees

Source: Wyoming Public Media

March 1, 2019

Two years ago, Jim Bills retired from the Kemmerer mine in Southwestern Wyoming.

“After spending seven years in the Air Force, I spent 36 years with Westmoreland coal,” he said.

Bills worked as a laborer, truck driver, and driller. His son works there now, too. Bills recalls watching retirees taken care of year-after-year. He was excited when his time finally came.

“Now my beard turned gray and it was my turn to collect and they don’t want to pay me!” he said.

Now, Bills says one medical emergency could wipe away his and his wife’s retirement fund.

“That’s just unacceptable. It’s greed! It’s corporate greed is what it is.”

Last October, Westmoreland filed for bankruptcy protection for the third time. The company had over a billion dollars in debt. It blames a weak coal market for its demise along with admitting it took on way too many loans trying to expand its operations. Mike Dalpiaz, International Vice President for United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) representing all the United Mine Workers in the Western U.S., says this particular mine has been around for over a century. He blames Westmoreland’s bad management.

“It’s like a blind man trying to run a coal mine,” Dalpiaz said.

A Texas judge granted Westmoreland permission to shed hundreds of millions of dollars in liabilities. Dalpiaz points out Westmoreland gave its executives huge bonuses last year, adding to local anger.

“Bankruptcy laws are made for corporations. They’re made by rich guys in Congress for rich guys that own corporation,” he said.

Lynn LoPucki, UCLA law professor and bankruptcy expert, said debtors have an advantage over employees because they’re able to choose where to file. In Westmoreland’s case, it chose a Houston court despite its Colorado headquarters.

“The situation you have now is that courts literally compete for the bankruptcy cases. The courts are changing what they’re doing, which I have said is corrupting,” LoPucki said.

Houston is the third most common city for bankruptcy cases. The top two are in Delaware and New York -with nearly 60 percent of cases taking place there in the U.S.

“The way that they attract the cases is by making the kinds of rulings that are attractive to the people who can bring the cases. Management is central to that. So, they’re the people who tend to be taken care of in bankruptcy cases,” LoPucki said.

A bill has come up repeatedly in Congress to end forum-shopping. A staffer for Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said the legislator is planning to reintroduce the bill this Congress.

Westmoreland’s lawyer Michael Slade said it’s bankruptcy code that obligated the company to negotiate with the union in good-faith. He said it’s helped create solutions and that it wasn’t always like that.

“If this had happened in the late ’80s, I think what you would have seen is a prompt rejection of all these obligations with nothing flowing to the retirees and to the employees,” Slade said.

He added Westmoreland has been fighting hard for their workers and retirees, but it’s an unfortunate climate for coal right now.

“This is not the retirees’ fault. It is not the employees’ fault. It’s not the company’s fault. It’s just the market which is absolutely terrible.”

Slade said it shouldn’t be taken for granted that Westmoreland worked hard to maintain worker’s pension plans. Debtors also are providing a year’s worth of healthcare benefit payments. He said it’s in everyone’s interest for the company to get solvent.

“Liquidation is worse for everyone. They would lose their jobs. The mines would not continue to operate and that would cause a lot of problems.”

The years-worth of benefits would help transition workers into a long-term congressional health care plan. The American Miner’s Act of 2019 has yet to be approved. It’s just the latest version of a bill aimed at helping coal workers.

The Kemmerer Mine in Wyoming will soon be getting a new owner: billionaire executive Tom Clarke. Many doubt the mine’s future profitability though the power plant next door already has dates set to retire two more coal-fired units.

UMWA’s Mike Dalpiaz said the fight for benefits is far from over with new collective bargaining agreement negotiations underway.

 

It’s time to correct this insult to miners

Written by: Dr. John P. David

A half century ago, Congress was in the midst of a major debate about Coal Mine Health and Safety. A key component was the high incidence rate of black lung. Passage of the act was heralded as a major victory to curb the presence of this incurable and potentially fatal occupational disease and provide compensation to miners who sacrificed their lives in the national interest.

Various initiatives were introduced, including dust monitoring devices, dust control requirements, breathing masks, establishment of black lung clinics, and many others.

For several decades, some progress was made in reducing the incident rate of progressive massive fibrosis known as pneumoconiosis or black lung. Then the situation became worse, not coincidentally when the UMWA lost its grip on coal mining production. Small “fly-by-night” non-union firms rose to prominence and those firms no longer had UMWA Health and Safety Committees. Health standards were not diligently enforced and unsafe work environments returned to the forefront, as noted in the study titled “Work Practices and Respiratory Health Status of Appalachian Coal Miners with Progressive Massive Fibrosis” recently published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Now, the American Journal of Public Health reports “one in five coal miners who’ve worked in West Virginia, Kentucky or Virginia for more than 25 years, has coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP).”

Not surprisingly, more incidents have come to light such as dust sampling fraud and the concealment of medical data. In addition, another major issue has been the coal industry practice of challenging most benefit claims. The process of how the industry, using some lawyers and doctors, has used its enormous financial resources to rig a system that blocked black lung benefits for stricken coal miners has been extensively documented most notably in a series of articles by Chris Hamby, with the helpof Beckley-based black lung lawyer John Cline, that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.

In 1977, Congress passed the Black Lung Benefits Revenue Act which set up the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund funded by an excise tax of $1.10 per ton sold domestically of underground coal and 55 cents per ton of surface coal. Ironically, in spite of a soaring incident rate, Congress allowed on Jan. 1, 2019, those rates to be cut in half, causing the U.S. General Accounting Office to estimate revenue would be insufficient to cover beneficiary payments starting in Fiscal Year 2020.

The consequence is an insult to coal miners, who worked hard to keep the lights on in America. It also will further hurt West Virginia’s economy in the coalfields where the lights have already dimmed.

Everyone needs to unite around “Black Lung Matters.” As Mother Jones said, “Not all the coal that is dug warms the world.” Miners suffer for their service to America and they are due reparations.

Dr. John P. David is professor emeritus of economics at West Virginia University Institute of Technology and director of the Southern Appalachian Labor School.

Be An International Representative!

The UMWA is accepting applications for International Representatives.

 

Positions that may become available are determined by the International Office as opportunities present themselves. All positions may require relocation to other Regions or Districts within the United States and Canada and could potentially require relocation to the metropolitan Washington, DC area.

Any positions that become available within the UMWA require full time employees, on 24-hour call seven days per week as necessary. All positions involve extensive travel and possibly extended periods away from an employee’s home location.

 

Applications can be obtained by contacting:

International Personnel Department

703-291-2400

or by sending a resume to:

United Mine Workers of America

18354 Quantico Gateway Drive,

Suite 200,

Triangle, VA 22172-1779

Strong year for CCS at Boundary Dam power plant

Source: World Coal

SaskPower’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility at Boundary Dam power plant exceeded its daily capture rate targets for 2018, while also achieving the second lowest operating cost per tonne of CO2 captured since 2014.

“The strong performance of the CCS facility in 2018 is encouraging and demonstrates that clean coal can still have a place in the power generation mix,” said Howard Matthews, SaskPower Vice President of Power Production. “These positive numbers reflect improvements made during the 2017 planned maintenance outage.”

In 2018, the CCS facility captured a total of 625 996 t of CO2, while the overall availability of the facility was 69%. However, the availability rate increases to 94% if you exclude the days when the CCS facility was available but Boundary Dam power plant unit 3 (BD3) was offline. On 14 June, Boundary Dam experienced a severe storm that resulted in an 84 day outage at BD3. The CCS facility was unable to capture any CO2 during this period. Additionally, BD3 was down 285 hours for two separate boiler tube leaks, and 87 hours following the massive power outage that affected the province 4 December.

During the periods CCS was capturing CO2, the average capture rate was 2505 tpd, which is greater than the 2435 tpd daily rate established as a target.

In 2014, Boundary Dam near Estevan became the first power plant in the world to successfully use CCS technology. Since start-up, the facility has captured 2 465 333 t of CO2, the equivalent of taking 616 333 cars off Saskatchewan roads.

CCS is part of SaskPower’s commitment to reduce emissions by 40% below 2005 levels by 2030. Reducing the carbon footprint of electricity generation in the province is a key component of Saskatchewan’s Prairie Resilience climate change strategy.

Published by: Stephanie Roker

United Mine Workers rally for benefit security after Mission Coal files for bankruptcy

Source: CBS 42

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.  (WIAT) — Miners with the United Mine Workers were out rallying this morning at Kelly Ingram Park in response to Mission Coal’s recent bankruptcy filings.

Two years ago, Mission Coal bought the mine but now that the company is going bankrupt. Miners say the are in danger of losing important benefits.

Keri Bester, a miner, stated, “A lot of people and a lot of families especially people who work in the mines, are affected by this. They’re affected by as far as wages, benefit, health care, and retirements and pension plans and stuff like that so it’s very important that we get the message out about what we’re losing and what’s at stake for us.”

The miners moved the rally to outside the courthouse as the trial began.

Manchin, Capito push for passing of American Miners Act of 2019

Source: West Virginia Metro News

The American Miners Act of 2019 was once again up for discussion this week in the U.S. Senate.

The bill, Senate Bill 27 sponsored by Senator Joe Manchin D-W.Va., would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to transfer certain funds to the 1974 United Mine Workers of America Pension Plan, and for other purposes.

“Right now retired coal miners’ health care pensions and black lung benefits are on the chopping block again,” Manchin said on the floor Wednesday.

Currently, SB27 is in the Committee of Finance after going through two readings on the floor.

Manchin was referring to the 1,200 coal miners and dependents who may lose their healthcare coverage due to inadequate bankruptcy laws surrounding Westmoreland Mining Company. He said the court is expected to allow Westmoreland to shed their coal act liabilities and that unfortunately, it is happening again and again.

“They’ve worked for this,” Manchin said. “They’ve negotiated for this. They are not asking for a handout, they are asking to get what they paid for, what they negotiated for, what they didn’t take home to their families. We have to keep our promise that was signed into law in the Krug Lewis Agreement. This goes back to 1946.”

Funding for the 1974 Pension Plan was started in 1946 under an executive order of President Harry Truman and constituted a federal guarantee to the health and welfare of coal miners, creating a “last man’s standing” multiemployer and retirement system for them and their dependents, per Manchin’s office.

U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., was also adamant on the Senate floor discussing the Pension Plan that is headed towards insolvency by 2022.

“We should pass legislation that expands the use of the same transfer payments that is used to support retiree healthcare to make the pension fund solvent,” she said.

“I have supported various forms of that kind of legislation throughout the years.”

Capito said miners have been writing to her, urging passage, and she added that it is important to remember these are not lavish pensions for the miners.

“One miner from Logan, WV who worked in the mines for 36 years, said to keep fighting for our pension,” she said. ” The miner said ‘I received $303.34 cents a month. We need this badly to help pay for food, medicine, and other bills.’

“The average benefit paid by this fund is $560 per month. These retirees are not getting rich on their pension plans and they are not taking lavish expenditures. Without this monthly benefit, many of them would be living on the edge of poverty if they are not already.”

Manchin said the Act comes from the same funding mechanism Congress has used time and again to protect miners.

“This is not going to be a drain on the treasury, it does not cost the taxpayers,” he said. “We have pay force. This will be taken care of as we have taken care of our health care benefits.”

The bill would be fully paid for by two provisions, according to Manchin’s office.

1. By extending for ten years the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax at $1.10 per ton of underground-mined coal and $0.55 per ton of surface-mined coal (up to 4.4% of the sales price). This tax is critical for supporting the Black Lung Disability Trust fund, which provides healthcare and benefits to more than 25,000 miners and their dependents.

2. By permitting in-service distributions under a pension plan or a governmental section 457(b) plan at age 59½, thus making the rules for those plans consistent with the rules for section 401(k) plans and section 403(b) plans.

Manchin ultimately just wants Congress to finish the job.

“Save the healthcare of these miners suffering from new bankruptcies,” he said. “Protect the pensions of 87,000 miners nationwide to do it by passing the American Miners Act. This would also ensure the future of the Black Lung Trust Fund, a lifeline of the growing numbers of miners with black lung.”

Read more on the bill here, on Manchin’s website.

UMWA files emergency motion: Westmoreland prematurely announced modifications to benefits

President Roberts said, regarding the article below:

“Bankruptcy Courts have allowed the coal industry to forgo $4 billion in withdrawal liability from the 1974 Plan in the past four years. Now, Westmoreland presumes that they do not have to wait for a Court decision to unilaterally cancel its obligations to its long-term employees. This is unacceptable and until bankruptcy laws are changed, this blatant disregard for the lives of working Americans will continue to happen.”

 

Source: Kemmerer Gazette

The United Mine Workers of America have filed an emergency motion in a Houston bankruptcy court arguing that Westmoreland Coal Co. has violated its obligations and bankruptcy court procedure.

In the motion filed on Feb. 8, UMWA lawyers state that Westmoreland prematurely announced on Jan. 23 that employee pension plan benefits would be frozen in March. Those benefits are part of the collective bargaining agreement between UMWA miners at the Kemmerer mine and Westmoreland Coal.

On Jan. 16, Westmoreland officially asked permission of the bankruptcy court to give them authority to reject the collective bargaining agreements and modify retiree benefits for Kemmerer miners, but a hearing on that motion has not yet taken place.

The UMWA argues that Westmoreland “circulated notices announcing that employee pension plan benefits for UMWA employees at the Kemmerer and Beulah mines will be frozen, effective March 10, 2019.”

The union lawyers called the announcement an “anticipatory breach” that was done without court approval and a violation of proper procedure.

“These notices caused a surge of panic in UMWA represented employees at both the Kemmerer and Beulah mines, and the UMWA has been inundated with letters from angry and panicked union workers,” UMWA lawyers state in the motion.

The union attached several of those letters as part of the emergency motion.

“How can this company send me a letter stating that my benefits would be ended in March without a court hearing or even a decision after a hearing on the matter?” said a letter to the bankruptcy court from Kemmerer miner Robert Clarke.

Other letters pleaded with Judge David R. Jones to uphold justice and ethical business practices.

UMWA says that the union employees are entitled to enforcement of the CBAs. The union says that because Westmoreland prematurely published the notices saying the pensions would be modified without obtaining court approval, that is cause for the bankruptcy court to reject their motion that the CBAs should be denied.

UMWA states that the debtors are still obligated to provide the defined benefit pension plans, and that Westmoreland knows they still have this obligation.

“The unilateral termination of benefits and resulting labor unrest makes a potential labor strike even more likely,” the UMWA lawyers state in the motion.

In the emergency motion, the union lawyers point out that Westmoreland expressed “continued willingness to meet with the UMWA” even after filing the motion asking authority to reject the agreements.

“Despite these representations, and the disingenuous implication that the debtors seek only authority to reject the CBAs, the Debtors unilaterally modified their obligations to fund the defined benefit pension plans just one week after filing their 1113/1114 motion,” UMWA lawyers state in the Feb. 8 emergency motion.

A hearing on the UMWA’s emergency motion and on Westmoreland’s motion to end the collective bargaining agreements will be held on Feb. 13, at 1:00 p.m., in Houston, Texas.

Written by:  Theresa Davis

CBS live-streaming news network to unionize

Source: The Hill

CBSN, the digital arm of CBS News, has become the first major live-streaming news network to unionize, according to an announcement by the Writers Guild of America, East.

“The WGAE recognizes that the news business has become increasingly platform-agnostic,” WGAW Executive Director Lowell Peterson said in an announcement Wednesday.

“People watch and read news on television screens and computer screens and smartphone screens (and on radio). Our members are committed to creating compelling content for all of these screens, and our union is committed to representing people who do this work on all screens,” Peterson continued.

Peterson wrote that it was “vital” that people working in streaming services secure the same “equal workplace protections” as their peers in broadcast and digital media.

WGA East will now handle collective bargaining efforts of CBSN’s 55 writers, producers and graphic artists.

CBSN, based in New York as CBS News headquarters, launched in 2014 in becoming the first round-the-clock digital streaming news network.

WGA East has represented traditional CBS News members since the news organization was formed in 1954.

Securing Retired Miners’ Pensions

Source: The Intelligencer – Wheeling News Register

Tens of thousands of retired coal miners and their families face financial roof collapses if Congress does not act to prevent them.

When the United Mine Workers of America 1974 Pension Plan was established, no one foresaw a time when it could become insolvent. But — in part because of a government-caused recession in much of the coal industry — that time is at hand. Within a few years, the pension program may run out of money.

U.S. Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., wants to do something about that. He has introduced a bill, HR 935, aimed at protecting retirement payments under the 1974 pension plan.

Enactment of the measure, co-sponsored by nine other representatives, would not be a simple government bailout of the miners’ pension plan. It rests on a restructuring that should keep the program viable long into the future.

As has been pointed out, if the program collapses, taxpayers could be on the hook.

“Miners put their lives on the line every day to produce the energy that powered our nation’s economic engine,” McKinley pointed out. “We need to keep our promise to them, so they have peace of mind and certainty for the future.”

Precisely. This is a looming catastrophe for as many as 100,000 retired miners and their families. It will not resolve itself.

McKinley and HR 935’s co-sponsors are right: Now is the time for Congress to act on the miners’ pensions.