From In These Times: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14860/senators_and_unions_call_for_obama_to_intervene_in_patriot_coal_bankruptcy/
By Mike Elk
Friday Apr 12, 2013
UMWA members rallied in St. Louis on Jan. 29 to protest Patriot Coal’s attempt in bankruptcy court to evade its obligations to retirees. (Photo by Mike Elk)
Charleston, WV–“I have been in the union for 40 years and I have never been as scared in my life as I am right now,” says retired miner and United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) member David Bella of Boone County, West Virginia. Depending on a court’s decision in the pending bankruptcy case of Patriot Coal, Bella’s pension and retirement benefits could be wiped out, along with those of 20,000 other beneficiaries.
To the UMWA, that loss is only one piece of the grave threat posed by the Patriot Coal bankruptcy. The miners union has filed suit claiming that Arch Coal and Peabody Energy designed Patriot Coal to fail—then shifted over a billion dollars in pension and retiree health care debts to Patriot as a ploy to get out of those obligations. The UMWA fears if Peabody and Arch get away with spinning off their obligations to a company designed to collapse, more coal companies will take similar measures. (Read WITT’s previous reporting on the Patriot Coal bankrupty.)
I spoke with Bella on April 1 at a rally of over 5,000 UMWA supporters in Charleston. Despite the turnout, he and many other miners remained pessimistic that the rally would convince the bankruptcy judge to turn down Patriot’s request to be relieved of its benefit obligations.
“This is a pep rally,” said Bella. “We had pep rallies before basketball games in high school. What’s it gonna do?”
Should the bankruptcy judge not rule in the miners’ favor, the union is looking for other ways to pressure the company. Since Patriot Coal pays into a multi-employer pension plan administered by the UMWA, miners union President Cecil Roberts hopes that the other employers will be motivated to put legal pressure on Patriot Coal to maintain its contributions so they won’t be stuck paying more. Under the plan proposed by Patriot, federal insurance would cover most—though not all—of Patriot’s cuts to its contributions to the multi-employer pension plan, and retirees would continue to receive their full pensions, at least for the time being. However, pensions for all coal miners could take a hit when the multi-employer plan comes up for re-negotiation in 2017.
Continue reading at: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14860/senators_and_unions_call_for_obama_to_intervene_in_patriot_coal_bankruptcy/
