Archives: Press Release

[TRIANGLE, VA.]  United Mine Workers of America International President Cecil E. Roberts issued the following statement today:

“I am gratified that Don Blankenship was found guilty of violating mine safety laws and that he received the maximum sentence available for that crime. However, it is outrageous that the most time in prison he can receive as a punishment is one year.

“There were 52 people killed at Massey mines while he was CEO of that company. The penalty he has received means he will get one week per death. That’s a travesty. He orchestrated a scheme to evade mine safety laws, impede enforcement of those laws, provide false information to federal safety inspectors and more, all of which put every miner who worked on any Massey property at risk of losing their lives every day they went to work.

“Far too many of them did, 29 on one terrible day six years ago. Don Blankenship deserves to go to jail, for that is surely where he belongs. And although this sentence will not begin to make him atone for his crimes, there is a higher court he will answer to someday, and I have complete faith that the justice he receives there will be more than adequate.”

Bipartisan Fix for Pension and Health Funds Covering 120,000 Workers and Families Will Avoid Costly Bailout by Taxpayer-Backed U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. and Bring Badly Needed Economic Assistance to Hard-Hit Mining Communities

SAN DIEGO – The Executive Council of the AFL-CIO, America’s largest labor federation, at its winter meeting gave strong backing today to bipartisan legislation that will honor the nation’s obligation to retired mine workers and their families.

“We deeply appreciate the support we’ve received today from our brothers and sisters in the labor movement,” said United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts. “Now we need to get this bill passed and get it on the President’s desk.

The Miners Protection Act (S. 1714) and the Coal Healthcare and Pensions Protection Act (H.R. 2403) have dozens of bi-partisan co-sponsors in the House and Senate. The pending legislation is a response to the depression that is gripping America’s coalfields and threatening pension and health care benefits for more than 120,000 retired miners and their families.

“Everybody in America who turns on a light switch owes a debt to a coal miner,” Roberts said. “Energizing America is work we are proud to do. But more than that, we made an agreement with the American government decades ago: We will go down in the mines, and we will take on the risk of death or severe injury, black lung disease and emphysema and all the rest. And in return, the federal government promised to guarantee our health care and we’ll have a small pension when we retire.

“We kept our side of the bargain,” added Roberts. “But now, thousands of people could lose their benefits if Congress doesn’t act.”

By repurposing an existing appropriation to shore up miners’ pension and health care funds, the bipartisan bills will avoid a costly bailout by the taxpayer-backed U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).

Pension and health care funds for mine workers and their families were established decades ago, with contributions based on coal production. The goal was to provide retirement and health security for workers who undertook dirty, dangerous jobs to meet the energy needs of a growing U.S. economy.

Costly mergers and bad bets on foreign mines by coal company managers, combined with competition from low-cost natural gas and a rising tide of government environmental regulations has devastated company after company. Coal tonnage and the price per ton for coal has been sharply reduced in recent years, causing many operators to go bankrupt. Some operators were relieved of their responsibilities to make payments to pension and health care funds through the bankruptcy process. Due to reduced employment in the industry, only one active union miner works for every 13 retirees.

With reduced payment from employers – and an increasing number of retirees who are paid benefits – the pension and health care funds for retired miners are facing insolvency. Some funds are in danger of going broke later this year.

“This is a must-pass piece of legislation and we appreciate the AFL-CIO’s support very much,” said UMWA International Secretary-Treasurer Dan Kane. “America’s coal miners did everything our nation asked of them. They earned every penny of their retirement and health care benefits – and every penny can and must be paid.”

“The longer we wait,” Roberts said, “the more suffering there will be in the coalfields – and the more costly this problem will become in the long run.”

[CHARLESTON, W. VA.]  United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President Cecil E. Roberts issued the following statement today:

“The wholesale attack on workers, their families and their communities that is playing out in the State Capitol has gone on long enough. It’s time for the out-of-state puppeteers who are driving this assault on West Virginia families to step aside and let the people of West Virginia have their say.

“The Legislature has gone out of its way to needlessly divide West Virginians for the benefit of a wealthy few. They and the front groups that are responsible for this travesty know this effort isn’t about creating jobs or attracting new businesses to West Virginia. Their actions are about one thing and one thing only: stripping away the rights of workers and tearing down the strength workers and families have when we speak with one voice.

“The UMWA supports putting the so-called ‘right to work’ bill on the ballot for a vote next November. Before the legislature takes away the right of working families to earn a fair living working at a safe job, those families deserve the right to vote on it.

“I urge Governor Tomblin to veto this regressive bill, and I urge those members of the Senate and House of Delegates who care about building a better future for all West Virginians to support a constitutional amendment referendum on this question instead of blindly overriding the Governor’s veto and setting our citizens against each other.”

[TRIANGLE, VA] The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and Peabody Energy announced today that they have reached an agreement that will provide for a payment by Peabody of up to $75 million over the next 10 months to help provide health care benefits for retirees affected by the Patriot Coal bankruptcy of 2012-13.

Peabody has agreed to pay $7.5 million per month beginning in January into the Patriot Retirees VEBA, a Voluntary Employees Beneficial Association established in 2013 to administer retirees’ health care benefits. The payments will continue until October 2016, unless legislation passes sooner in Congress that would put those retirees’ health care under the umbrella of the UMWA Health and Retirement Funds.

There are some 12,000 retirees, dependents and widows covered by the Patriot VEBA, primarily living in West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana.

“I am pleased that we have been able to reach this agreement,” UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said. “The second bankruptcy of Patriot Coal in 2015 and the breakup of that company into separate entities put the initial agreement providing funding for the VEBA in jeopardy. With this new agreement, we have been able to provide a measure of security for these retirees, their dependents and widows.”

“These retirees did everything asked of them, and now through no fault of their own find their health care benefits under threat,” Roberts said. “This agreement will help, but is by no means a permanent fix to this problem.

“We need Congress to live up to the promise made by Harry Truman in the White House nearly 70 years ago to our nation’s miners – and repeatedly confirmed by Republican and Democratic Presidents and Congresses since – that if miners would provide the resource to make America the most powerful nation on earth, they would receive retirement security for the rest of their lives.”

“It is time to secure that promise once and for all,” Roberts said.