Tag Archives: Arch Coal

Still Keeping Time

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Since my last post, I’ve been packing up and preparing to move during another ferocious heat wave scorching the nation. That is the big story from Arizona to Massachusetts. Mother Nature’s frenzy. And that’s another story.

We’re not moving far, but the process of parting with a home and memories accumulated over 22-plus years can be discombobulating, to say the least. I console myself with the fact that this is a new chapter, and there is much to build on. Time marches on, and with it go the flickering vignettes of life, the universe and everything.

Some thoughts on the news of the day, and yesterday:

ImageWho are braver than the firefighters who rush into the flames to save lives and property? They are our most important warriors today in this heat, with wildfires out of control throughout California, Arizona, Colorado, Montana and other states. The 19 firefighters who died fighting a blaze in Arizona this year were the best trained, the most dedicated, the most fearless. My hat is off to the International Association of Fire Fighters and President Harold Schaitberger, who speaks proudly and powerfully about firefighters’ dedication and organization in the public interest.

“The men we lost in those hills lived and served for others, for all of us,” Schaitberger said in tribute during the memorial service for the Arizona “Hotshot” crew. “They chose saving lives and protecting the citizens and country they loved, as their profession.”

They are my heroes. As the Boss says, may their love bring us love:

Perhaps the most outrageous outcome of the Trayvon Martin case, besides a jury of white women actually upholding vigilante injustice against a black teenager under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, is the pronouncement of shooter George Zimmerman after his acquittal that he felt “that it was all God’s plan.” What kind of God plans for the stalking and killing of an unarmed teenager? I am disappointed by the verdict but also dismayed by the sanctimony of those who would judge Trayvon Martin but not the acts of a wannabe cop who clearly initiated the confrontation and set it off. It is sad to think that American justice holds that profiling and prejudice are extenuating circumstances, and the perpetrator can walk.

Edward Snowden, the young consultant who walked away from his contract job with a laptop computer full of information about how the National Security Agency has routinely, and with impunity, collected telephone and email communications from Americans, is now holed up in the Moscow airport, although a deal may be underway to grant him temporary asylum in Russia. I have mixed feelings about his actions, which I think fall short of espionage but certainly should be prosecuted, if he can be apprehended. I’m not sure I want him to be apprehended, however. His target audience is the American people, not some foreign government – although foreign governments, friend and foe, must look askance at the U.S. propensity and ability to track any and all communications. The most important question to resolve: Do we trust our own government enough to allow what clearly is invasive prying into our private lives. We will have to revisit this very important issue later.

The selling of “Obamacare” is a bow to the same ugly dealing that got us this flawed health care “reform” in the first place. Delaying for one year the requirement that employers with 50 or more employees provide health care may help the Democrats weather another election season of Obamacare curses, but it sets back the effort to provide health care for every American. Meanwhile, some provisions of Obamacare actually penalize – and may put out of business – good “multi-employer” health care plans, which pool resources to provide good and affordable care. Eventually, this Obamacare system must grow a “public option” if we are to control costs.

Three cheers for the Economic Policy Institute in creating a new instructional website at http://inequality.is// about the dangerous trend toward economic inequality. It is a telling reminder about what we must do as a nation to fix a broken economic system that is seriously out of kilter. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich’s avatar provides a professorial tour through the brambles of an economy that was created to be unfair and is hurting not only families, but also the future of our nation. Check it out here:

Malala Yousufzai, the young girl shot in the head by Taliban terrorists last year to prevent her from promoting education for girls in her native Pakistan, made a moving and inspirational speech to the UN Youth Assembly on her 16th birthday. The world is fortunate that such a courageous young woman, wise beyond her years, will dare to challenge ignorance, hypocrisy and violence. Ignore the al Jazeera news crawl and watch her speech to the end:

The fight for Fairness at Patriot goes on in the face of a bankruptcy court ruling that gave Patriot Coal carte blanche to drastically cut benefits for retired and active coal miners, most of whom worked at Peabody and Arch Coal and never worked a day at Patriot. I was on hand to witness the nearly 5,000 miners and supporters who gathered in a football field in Fairmont, W.Va. on July 9 to protest the ruling and the corporate swindle authored by Peabody and Arch, which dumped their retiree obligations into a company, Patriot, created to fail. Police arrested 30 miners and supporters during the peaceful protest. The next rally is outside Arch Coal headquarters in St. Louis on July 30. It won’t stop there.

A recent Washington Post article nonchalantly laid out the Koch brothers’ media War Room, KochFacts.org, a media attack machine that challenges every report, and spins every issue their way. With the Koch brothers reportedly planning to buy some of America’s great newspapers as part of a deal with the Chicago Tribune Co., this commentary by Robert Reich is worth repeating: “Suppose a small group of extremely wealthy people sought to systematically destroy the U.S. government by (1) finding and bankrolling new candidates pledged to shrinking and dismembering it; (2) intimidating or bribing many current senators and representatives to block all proposed legislation, prevent the appointment of presidential nominees, eliminate funds to implement and enforce laws, and threaten to default on the nation’s debt; (3) taking over state governments in order to redistrict, gerrymander, require voter IDs, purge voter rolls, and otherwise suppress the votes of the majority in federal elections; (4) running a vast PR campaign designed to convince the American public of certain big lies, such as climate change isn’t occurring, and (5) buying up the media so the public cannot know the truth. Would you call this treason?”

koch-bros-voodoo-dollYes, I would call it treason. Nothing is more destructive to our democracy than the ability of the mega-rich to buy candidates and laws – not only through the well-heeled lobbying firms on Washington’s K Street, but also with slick model legislation writing at the state legislative level through ALEC, an anti-democratic organization funded by Koch and their billionaire ilk to subvert local lawmaking. As long as we have a Supreme Court that rules that corporations are people, and can spend whatever they want to influence public policy, we are at the mercy of Big Money. They are leviathans in the political arena and we are armed with little more than a slingshot. We must create new laws to protect ourselves against corporate tyranny.

Those are some heavy issues weighing on my brow this month, and I’m sure many of these and more have crossed your mind. But we’re up against enormous personal challenges every day, and it’s not easy to focus on things that are once removed from our personal sphere, things we care about in principle, but not necessarily in action. That’s another issue for another day.

Today’s bon mot: Don’t overexert yourself. And drink plenty of water.

Lessons in Social Justice

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The Fairness at Patriot rally in Henderson, Ky., on Tuesday sent me tripping back through time. Here we were at the County Courthouse at the edge of Henderson’s idyllic Central Park, where I worked and played for years, demanding justice for those who mine coal while celebrating the continued importance of that resource to the community.

In this blog, I have written about the history of King Coal and Henderson, and the Mine Workers struggle for justice, including the series of rallies in St. Louis that challenged the bankruptcy court to do the right thing, which, sadly, it did not.  But nothing hit home quite so dramatically as the rally on June 4.

Again there was the deep sense of the moral outrage – expressed by politicians as well as labor leaders – for the abandonment of mining families and retirees by Peabody Energy and Arch Coal, the villains in this story. They dumped all the legacy liabilities and conveyed few of their assets onto a company that seemed to be created to fail, Patriot Coal, now in bankruptcy.

As eloquent as the speakers were, none captured the spirit of the moment as well as an associate pastor at Henderson Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church, where I once served as an altar boy and choirboy.  Opening the rally with a homily and a prayer, the Rev. Anthony Shonis set the mood and the story for the event:

Father Shonis, a native of Pennsylvania coal country who has ministered at the Henderson parish for the past decade, told the story not only of the rally but also of the union that has struggled for justice in the coalfields since 1890, when its founding President John Mitchell led the charge against the ruthless coal barons of the day.

He also invoked the memory of John L. Lewis, the legendary president of the Mine Workers who revolutionized the labor movement by leading the CIO to organize industrial unions — from auto and steel to utilities and furniture manufacturers. The history of American labor largely began and was transformed through the Mine Workers – although the Locomotive Engineers, Carpenters and other craft unions may claim earlier roots.

It was Mine Workers’ struggle that inspired so many to strive and succeed. And in the words of Father Shonis’s prayer, that ongoing struggle may also hold the keys to the future:

Today, the fight that UMWA President Cecil Roberts calls “the Mine Workers Traveling Salvation Show” is offering a warning and a prescription to workers of every stripe, in every industry. The signs waved across the park with the legend, “Are You Next?” carry special significance in an era when U.S. corporations are using bankruptcy courts to dump retirement obligations and seek unilateral changes in existing contracts.

ImageThe UMWA campaign already has generated legislation in the House and Senate to protect retirement benefits for the miners, as well as calls for changes in the nation’s bankruptcy laws to prevent the easy relief for U.S. corporations at the expense of employees, a process that Roberts likened to “curb service” – just drive in and get what you want, few questions asked.

“Let’s just move the bankruptcy court to the Department of Motor Vehicles,” Roberts said. “They have long lines. You’ve got to have your paperwork in order. At least they have to stand in line with their paperwork!”

Roberts decried that the nation has become “a nation of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations,” saying that the Fairness at Patriot campaign can help the nation get back on track. “I’ve got a message for Peabody and Patriot and the judicial system in this country,” he said. “This is a movement of the people, by the people and for the people.”

I felt a sense of great pride as I listened to his words, to be a part of this democratic movement that bubbles up from the people who work for a living. And even though I’m no longer a practicing Catholic, I was also proud of Father Shonis and the Church’s longstanding campaign for social justice that he represented so well at the rally in my hometown.

The Church’s teachings about social and economic justice are lessons I will carry with me all my life. They underline the truth and the strength of the labor movement, a galvanizing influence on our people and our democracy. Thanks for the reminder, Father Shonis.

In the Court of Public Opinion

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I am going home to cover a big story, just like old times. When 4,000 United Mine Workers and community supporters rally Tuesday, June 4, at the Henderson County (Ky.) Courthouse, I’ll be there to write about it, to blog live in my hometown, where I began my career as a newspaper reporter.

This is a story that Henderson should know well, the fight by coal miners to earn a decent living, to survive in a dangerous job. Coal was King in Henderson for many years, along with corn, soybean and tobacco, now overtaken by marijuana, as markets change, including energy. Coal has fallen on hard times, but not nearly so much as the miners who spent decades underground mining the coal. Many struggle for breath, many live out their lives in pain.

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A retiree rallies in St. Louis. The rigors of coal mining have taken their toll on miners, but they’re fighting back through the United Mine Workers of America.

These are men and women dependent on health care benefits that St. Louis-based Peabody Energy and Arch Coal promised to deliver but dodged artfully through a corporate swindle – I don’t know how else to describe it. They have offloaded their retirement obligations to these miners onto a little company that may have been “created to fail.” Patriot Coal filed for bankruptcy last year and is getting a gentle hand from U.S. bankruptcy court, even as Peabody and Arch wash their hands, like Pontius Pilate.

And here’s the lead: Patriot Coal on Wednesday, May 28, was awarded a bankruptcy court ruling that essentially gave the company the green light to gut the contracts of 1,700 active Mine Workers and strip life-saving health care benefits from 23,000 retirees and their family members. The Mine Workers immediately announced they would appeal the ruling, and continue their fight in other courts, in Congress and in the court of public opinion.

Now the story is coming to Henderson, and I believe it is a place where miners can get a fair hearing – at least in the court of public opinion. Patriot operates the Highland mine in adjoining Union County, and until last summer operated the Freedom mine in Henderson. Patriot shut down Freedom and others in West Virginia, and many are operating well below capacity. It’s a bittersweet reminder for citizens of Henderson that coal has always held both promise and peril.

Every coalfield family has been affected by the rigors of coal mining.  They’ve all lost friends and relatives to pneumoconiosis (black lung) and other respiratory diseases, or to the dangerous life underground. Coal is part of the DNA of these communities, and UMWA health care is a lifeline to the next day. Sadly, every American is affected by the erosion of health benefits, and by courts that increasingly favor the rights of corporations over the rights of individuals.

That is where we are today, facing a judicial system that somehow gives corporations the rights of people, while diminishing the rights of real people. “As often happens under American bankruptcy law, the short-term interests of the company are valued more than the dedication and sacrifice of the workers, who actually produce the profits that make a company successful,” said Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).

Roberts has vowed to continue the fight in every forum, including in federal court in Charleston, where the UMWA has sued Peabody and Arch for violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), alleging the companies conspired to deny benefits to their longtime employees and their families.

“Peabody and Arch can decide to live up to their obligations and end this problem tomorrow,” Robert said. “But if they don’t, we will continue our litigation against them and are optimistic about our chances.”

The rally in Henderson next week continues an aggressive campaign by the Mine Workers to make the miners’ case for justice in the communities where they live, where they raised their kids and contributed to local economies often driven by coal. As a young reporter, I waded through records at the Henderson County Courthouse, tracking the trade in mineral rights, to Peabody, Reynolds and other industry heavyweights of the day.

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The Henderson County (Ky.) Courthouse, where 4,000 Mine Worker and their supporters will rally next Tuesday.

Now it’s come to this: Giant coal companies that extracted the mineral wealth of communities now discard the workers who made their fortunes on a gob pile, like they were merely the waste of the operation – a sad reflection on corporate America. But we also are witnessing the courage and the determination of the miners and their union.

While the UMWA train stops in Henderson as it searches for justice, inevitably it is on its way to Washington, D.C., where the voices of miners already are being heard.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), denouncing the bankruptcy court ruling as a “travesty,” declared, “It is wrong that Peabody can set up a company such as Patriot, fill that company with its liabilities and then spin that company off for the sole purpose of avoiding its contractual and moral obligations to its workers. I don’t think bankruptcy laws were ever designed to shield corporations from their promises and responsibilities. I will continue to fight for fairness in the bankruptcy system.”

This is a fight that affects us all. Stay tuned. You will be able to follow the action in Henderson via the live blog, or watch it via livestream video here, beginning at 10 a.m. CT Tuesday, June 4.

Faith and Justice

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As Mine Workers and their supporters prepare to descend on St. Louis Tuesday to again raise their voices outside the federal courthouse, they are bolstered by a new report by religious leaders that finds the miners’ battle against Peabody Energy, Arch Coal and the bastard child Patriot Coal to be right and just.

And they are heartened by their own sense of faith and hope that justice will be served – if not by the ruling by the bankruptcy judge sometime before May 29, then in the federal court in Charleston, W.Va., where the United Mine Workers of America has sued the coal companies for violating federal law, or in the U.S. Congress, where relief legislation has been introduced in both the Senate and the House.

But there are huge mountains to climb to preserve the health care coverage for coal miners and their retirees, and nobody knows that better than the union that has been fighting for the rights of these energy pioneers since 1890. It’s no secret that corporations increasingly are using the bankruptcy courts to dump retiree benefits.

“This has happened to steelworkers, airline workers, bakery workers, glass workers and now mine workers,” said Mike Caputo, a UMWA vice president and majority whip in the West Virginia House of Delegates. “Enough is enough. It’s time to take a stand.”

The stand by the Mine Workers has galvanized support not only from the labor movement, but also from consumer, civil rights, environmental and religious organizations. On April 29, at the last rally in St. Louis, UMWA President Cecil Roberts was joined in civil disobedience, and arrest, by 15 supporters that included CWA President Larry Cohen, National Consumers League Director Sally Greenberg, and Van Jones, executive director of Rebuild the Dream and a former Obama aide.

The support from the religious community has been consistent throughout the campaign, reflecting the fact that churches are the bedrock institution of mining communities throughout Appalachia and along the Ohio Valley, where Peabody and Arch have hauled away their fortunes.

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Mine Workers and their supporters bow their heads in prayer during a candlelight vigil outside the federal courthouse in St. Louis April 29.

Two of the Mine Workers interviewed by the religious groups in their report, “Schemes From the Board Room,” released May 1, are also Free Will Baptist preachers, and they portrayed the dire straits faced by their coworkers in starkly religious terms.

“The Lord may have called me to open my big mouth,” said David McCloud, who retired from a Peabody mine. “Peabody defrauded workers at their mines. They made promises they didn’t mean to keep. They oppress the poor and working people. I know we are supposed to depend on the Lord to provide, but sometimes we need to speak out and do something ourselves.”

Another miner-preacher speaking up was Elbert Collins Jr., who noted, “Ninety-five percent of our church members are miners. Thank the Lord for life and health benefits. But now we’ve come to a time of crisis.” His wife is on the wait list for cancer treatment, Collins said. “If we didn’t have a health care, the bills would overwhelm us.”

The fact-finders heard from Shirley Inman, a diminutive woman who left a well-paying job in Chicago to return home to West Virginia to work in coalmines because of the guaranteed health care benefit. She worked for Arch for nearly 30 years as an equipment operator but was forced into retirement by injuries to her spine and neck. “A cancer survivor, she is now experiencing spinal deterioration and other health problems, and relies on multiple prescriptions,” the report stated.

The rigors of coal mining has been on display at the rallies in St. Louis and Charleston, as some marchers carried oxygen equipment and others were consigned to wheel chairs as they struggled to breathe through the ravages of black lung, the scourge of coal miners. “People know that coal dust is bad, but they tend to overlook it to keep bread on the table,” Dr. Dan Doyle of the Cabin Creek (W.Va.) Health System told the fact-finders.

It’s not just mining families but entire communities that stand to lose if the courts allow Patriot to walk away from some $1.5 billion in health care liabilities, benefits promised to the miners. Brian Sanson, the UMWA Health and Retirement Fund liaison and the union’s director of research, said coalfield communities could lose $1.3 billion a year in pension and health care dollars.

“In 2012, Patriot and the UMWA Health and Retirement Funds provided health care payments that totaled over $320 million to West Virginia, $107 million to Kentucky, $58 million to Illinois and $33 million to Indiana,” Sanson told the religious fact-finding mission. “The retirees, widows and dependents do not have the financial means to pay for these benefits.” Most would be forced into personal bankruptcy or forced onto welfare rolls, he said.

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Religious Leaders for Coalfield Justice and Interfaith Worker Justice held hearings at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Charleston, W.Va., back in March, producing this report.

Of the 10,633 families receiving retiree health benefits from Patriot, 90 percent never worked a day for Patriot or Magnum, which Patriot absorbed from Arch, Sanson said. “Clearly, the primary motivation behind the Arch/Magnum transaction and the Peabody/Patriot spinoff was to avoid the liabilities to its former employees.”

The report, produced by Interfaith Worker Justice and Religious Leaders for Coalfield Justice, accuses Arch and Peabody of abandoning coalfield communities and their own families — people who have built their companies — for the sake of misguided notions of economic freedom. Quoting Psalms, the religious leaders urge people of all faiths to “stand with mine workers, their families and communities as they seek a just solution to their plight. And we invite prayers for them, as well as for owners and managers of Arch, Peabody and Patriot.”

You can read the full report here.

Meanwhile, miners continue their demonstrations to dramatize the unfairness of the scheme by the giant coal companies to steal their benefits, maintaining their faith in the U.S. justice system. They also are working to make sure that Congress gets the message. The Coalfield Accountability and Retired Employee (CARE) Act, sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller in the Senate and by Rep. Nick Rahall in the House, would extend the federally guaranteed welfare and retirement system for coal miners and their dependents, in place since 1946.

The CARE Act would shore up the UMWA 1974 pension plan, undermined by the 2008 recession, and give union retirees who lose health care benefits because of company bankruptcy eligibility for the 1992 benefit plan and hold employers accountable for contributions.

For the time being, the campaign is playing out in the streets of St. Louis, but it will not stop there. Capitol Hill looms on the horizon. Federal Courts, the Congress, the President. The Mine Workers are prepared to leave no stone unturned in the search for justice. They say faith moves mountains.

If you can’t be in St. Louis tomorrow, you can follow the rally via live stream here.

Will There Be Justice?

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Bankruptcy Court hearings begin Monday on Patriot Coal’s plan to effectively eliminate health care for retirees and impose severe cutbacks on pay, working conditions and benefits for active miners. Outside the courthouse in St. Louis, thousands of Mine Workers (UMWA) and their labor and community allies will call for justice.

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They will bear witness to a scam by Peabody Energy and Arch Coal to dump long-term benefit obligations on a company, Patriot, created specifically to absorb those obligations and eventually to fail. That case is being heard in another federal courthouse, in Charleston, W.Va., but it’s an essential underlying factor in this bankruptcy.

Consumer, environmental and civil rights leaders will join labor and religious leaders in demanding justice for those men and women who gave their entire working lives to the success of rich companies like Peabody and Arch, only to be dumped, and for the mining communities that are being abandoned in the process.

Joining UMWA President Cecil Roberts onstage will be Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America; Sally Greenberg, director of the National Consumers League; Van Jones, president of Rebuild the Dream; St. Louis NAACP President Adolthus Pruitt; and UNITE HERE Vice President Bob Proto. And Steve Smyth, president of the Australian mine workers, is coming halfway around the world to pledge support from down under.

Prayers will open and close the gathering, and the congregation comes together again in the evening for a candlelight prayer vigil across from the Federal Building.

It will be the Mine Workers “largest rally yet in St. Louis,” Roberts said, after four previous excursions that drew thousands of miners and supporters. Two weeks ago, the miners planted 1,000 white crosses to signify the number of miners who have died working for the coal companies, or who stand to lose their lives if their health care is taken from them.

The union is running a new 30-second TV spot in the St. Louis metropolitan area that dramatizes the importance of the fight. If the bankruptcy court can allow contractual obligations to miners and their families to be offloaded and then discarded, then no worker’s benefit is safe from corporate thievery.

The Peabody and Arch bigwigs, after listening to the crowd chants during previous demonstrations, got far out of town as the bankruptcy hearings begin, both holding annual meetings in Wyoming. But they can’t get away from the Mine Workers. A delegation was in Wright, Wyo., April 25 to demonstrate at the Arch meeting, and plan to yell even louder outside the Peabody meeting April 29.

“These companies can run, but they can’t hide,” said Jody Hogge, a retiree from Peabody Energy who traveled to Wyoming. She is president of UMWA Local 9819, and retired from Peabody Mine #10 in Pawnee, Ill., with 13 years of service as a miner when the mine closed in 1994. “They moved their meetings more than 1,000 miles from St. Louis because they don’t want people to see what they’re doing to us. They prefer to operate behind closed doors; we’re here to keep those doors open and let everyone see exactly how these corporations behave.”

You can follow the live blog from the rally at http://fairnessatpatriotnow.blogspot.com/. The event also will be live streamed, beginning at 10 a.m. Central Time at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mineworkers. For more information, check out http://www.fairnessatpatriot.org, and show your support by “liking” the Fairness at Patriot on Facebook.

Last Line of Defense

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Denny Pickens saw a good job at the Shoemaker mine outside Wheeling, W.Va., nearly slip through his fingers before he was able to reel it back with the help of his union, the United Mine Workers of America, which convinced Consol Energy that it should invest in revitalizing the mine.

Pickens, the president of the local UMWA union at the mine, was a key player in organizing a cooperative program that demonstrated to Consol that the mine could be profitable, saving hundreds of jobs and boosting a community that depends on mining families for its survival.

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As the head of the march neared Patriot Coal headquarters in Charleston, demonstrators were still leaving the Civic Center 11 blocks behind. More than 10,000 miners and their supporters rallied for fairness.

That battle for the economic health of coalfield communities has boiled over as Patriot Coal and its sponsors, Peabody Energy and Arch Coal, are using the bankruptcy courts in an effort to dump their obligations to retirees and their families. That’s why Pickens joined more than 10,000 Mine Workers and their supporters April 1 as they marched to the Charleston headquarters of Patriot Coal, demanding a fair deal for the workers who built the companies’ fortunes.

After 45 years in the mine, Pickens would like to retire but he can’t afford to do it when retiree health care is hanging in the balance of this struggle. “If it could happen to our brothers down here, it could happen to us,” he said. “And if it goes past us, it could happen to anyone in this country.”

That is the considered view of a man who has spent nearly half a century in pitched battles with coal companies that have had little compunction about tossing workers and retirees under the bus if it helps to maximize their profits – and a man who understands the power that a union gives him when he goes to the table.

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Denny Pickens

“It’s got to stop, and it’s got to stop now,” Pickens said. “If we’ve got to be the shock troops to do it, then I guess we’ll do it.”

It was easy to see the United Mine Workers as the leading edge of a defensive stand as they marched through the streets of Charleston, outfitted in their trademark camouflage garb. Many were veterans of wars, from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, recognized from the podium by UMWA President Cecil Roberts.

“Every time this country has called on us … the Appalachian coal miners have been the first ones to answer that call,” Roberts said. “Now I say, these people stood with their country and it’s time for our country to stand with them.”

Among the nearly 11,000 marchers was a young family all in camouflage – Tim and Melissa Morris with their infant Hayley, asleep in Tim’s arms. They had come from southwestern Pennsylvania because “what they’re doing is not fair,” Tim said. “We’re sticking together and fighting back.”

That’s a spirit lauded by public officials who addressed the crowd, from senior U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (via video) to Rep. Nick Rahall and West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant. All sang the praises of the Mine Workers and their leadership.

Perhaps no one was as effusive in praising the miners as West Virginia’s junior senator, Joe Manchin, also a former governor. He said he enjoys telling people outside Appalachia just how important coal miners have been to American history, to the economy and to the defense of the nation.

“People don’t defend this country without you,” Manchin said. “I tell other people: These are the most patriotic people in the country. They’ve shed more blood and made more sacrifices than any other group of people I know.”

The irony of these patriotic Americans fighting for fairness from a company that calls itself “Patriot” was not lost on the congregation.

Here’s Sen. Manchin’s full remarks:

Roll Away the Stone

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Over the past several months, Mine Workers have marched in the streets of St. Louis to protest Peabody Energy abandoning its former employees. On three occasions, miners have locked hands in the streets in a boisterous nonviolent protest, singing “Amazing Grace” as they waited to be arrested.

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United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts greets the thousands of supporters rallying in St. Louis March 19. Expect a moving speech in Charleston April 1.

Invoking the words of Jesus and passages of scripture, they have asked why courts would allow workers to be persecuted, denying them the benefits they were promised. They are asking for fairness. They ask: If we allow corporations to use the bankruptcy courts to dump retiree pensions and health care, what kind of society are we?

The question will be raised again on Monday, April 1 in the streets of Charleston, W.Va., with more than 5,000 miners and their supporters rallying outside the downtown headquarters of Patriot Coal, the shell company that was created by Peabody and Arch Coal to take over their obligations to employees, and then fail.

I’ll be there and blogging live via http://fairnessatpatriotnow.blogspot.com/, and posting here about the rally later in the week. You can get more details at http://www.fairnessatpatriot.org, and at Fairness at Patriot on Facebook.

So much is at stake, not only for retirees and their families, and for active miners and their communities, but also for every retiree depending on company-provided health care and pensions. Too often in recent years, companies have sought to dump these obligations through the bankruptcy courts. It’s in everyone’s interest that we stop it here.

The Mine Workers are taking a valiant stand, invoking not only history but also a Christian spirit that they argue should infuse the court’s deliberations. This is about fairness, about human dignity, about respect for family and hard work. This is about faith, perhaps even resurrection for struggling mining families.

The Mine Workers have come home to Charleston, seat of the bustling coal mining industry for nearly a hundred years, to state this case clearly. West Virginians understand the sacrifices that coalmine families have made to support mining in Appalachia, to build prosperous and promising lives.

Listen to these stories, sung so well by Tom Breiding of Pittsburgh, about the fight for fairness against Peabody and its agents:

The Alligator Shoe Drops

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As bankruptcy court hearings begin today in St. Louis on Patriot Coal’s petition to eliminate retiree health care and to make steep cuts in compensation for active miners, the United Mine Workers released documents showing that Patriot has paid more than $14 million in legal fees and expenses to the well-heeled New York law firm, Davis Polk and Wardwell.

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While coal miners, retirees and their widows may be threatened with loss of their livelihoods – even their lives when it comes to their critical health care – the lawyers in Gucci Gulch are living high off the hog telling Patriot how it can shed human liabilities, reward executives and hoard cash.

Senior attorneys at the law firm are billing Patriot $985 an hour, junior attorneys bill $795 an hour and paralegals bill $400 an hour for such tasks as “coordinate duplication,” “assemble and revise hearing binder,” and “prepare FedEx labels for shipment.” The firm charged $21,951.78 in meal expenses from July 2012 to January 2013.

“This is a terrible irony that attorneys making $1,000 an hour and paid more than $14 million at this point, they’re billing $22,000 for take-out food when they work late,” UMWA President Cecil Roberts told a press briefing on Monday. “And yet they want to take away health care from 97,000 people, who pay for their own food, buy their own lunches.” See more details of the filing here.

“We have people who can’t afford their medicine,” Roberts said, “people who have literally broken their backs, who have been severely injured working for Peabody Energy and Arch Coal, the companies that then dumped their obligations into a company they created to fail, Patriot Coal.”

Roberts talked about getting a call from a 93-year-old widow who’s afraid she’ll lose everything if the company is able to walk away from its retirees. “She had lost her husband, and all of her friends had passed. She said, ‘I’ve got one friend left and that’s Cecil Roberts, because you’re trying to save my health care.’ Well, I’ll never give up trying. I’ll never sign an agreement with these coal companies that takes away health care from these retirees.”

Patriot has asked the court to replace its retiree health plan with “Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association” (VEBA), with a cash contribution of $15 million, about the same amount it has paid the lawyers thus far to shake down the former employees, and far short of what is needed. And the company also has asked the court to approve $7 million in bonuses for the genius executives that led them into bankruptcy court.

Mine Workers, retirees and their widows will be among the hundreds that gather on the streets of St. Louis today, demanding that the courts do their duty and provide justice for the miners and their families. Some will be arrested.

“We will not stop until we see that justice in our nation is for all the people, and not just the rich folks,” Roberts said. Meet one of the families whose lives are at stake here.

Patriot Drops the Bomb

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Patriot Coal has asked bankruptcy court to terminate all retiree health care obligations and radically restructure its collective bargaining agreement with the United Mine Workers of America, essentially a nuclear option that promises to intensify the heat in the streets of St. Louis, where coal miners have come to demonstrate and go to jail if necessary to make their public case.

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The bankruptcy court motions are “totally unacceptable, unnecessary and put thousands of retired coal miners, their dependents or their widows on the path to financial ruin, worsening health conditions or even death,” UMWA President Cecil E. Roberts declared.

The union stepped up its criticism of Peabody Energy and Arch Coal for using the Patriot shell company to dump their pension and health care obligations. Most of the miners affected are former employees of Peabody or Arch and never worked a day for Patriot Coal.

“Patriot is now the vehicle through which Peabody’s and Arch’s scheme to rid themselves of their long-term obligations to these retirees is playing out,” Roberts said. “But that does not absolve Patriot.”

The union has been negotiating with Patriot to reach a fair agreement and Roberts vowed that those talks would continue. “We remain on two paths in our fight for fairness and justice,” he said. “We will continue to meet with Patriot in the hopes that something fair for both sides can be worked out.

“But at the same time we will continue to make our case in the streets of St. Louis, in Charleston, W.Va., and anywhere else we need to be,” Roberts said. “Lawyers will do what lawyers do, courts will do what courts do. What working families do when they fight for justice is get out, get loud and demand to be heard. We will continue to do that.”

Expect the volume to rise in the streets of St. Louis next week. Here’s how the Mine Workers are making their case to the people of St. Louis in a new TV spot:

Fairness at Patriot

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Peabody Energy today got a first taste of what promises to be an intense in-your-face confrontation with the United Mine Workers, the first day of hearings in the bankruptcy of Patriot Coal, a company Peabody spun off to offload its union operations – and pension and health care obligations for thousands of retirees and their families.

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Cecil Roberts, third from left, leads miners in singing “Amazing Grace” as they prepare to be arrested in front of Peabody headquarters in St. Louis. (Photo by Mike Elk)

United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts led hundreds of active and retired coal miners in a rally across from the federal building where the court hearing was in session, and then in a march to Peabody headquarters where he and nine others were arrested for sitting in the street and refusing to disperse.

Most of the miners and retirees whose benefits are at risk in the bankruptcy never worked a day at Patriot, but were victims of the double-breasting practices of Peabody and Arch Coal, which also dumped its union operations on Patriot. The UMW charges that Peabody created Patriot specifically to rid itself of the legacy costs, and that Patriot was built to fail.

“What we have here is a company reneging on its promises,” Roberts said of Peabody. “We’re not going to take it. We will fight for our members and their families in the courts, in the coalfields and in the streets of St. Louis. Patriot and Peabody have a moral obligation to those who mined their coal.”

The UMW live-streamed much of the rally and march from St. Louis, and also live-blogged at the event, which had the flavor of old-fashioned mass demonstrations and street theater. Roberts vowed the union would continue to hammer away at the companies in the court of public opinion.

Before marching to Peabody headquarters, Roberts called to the stage the nine other mine workers who he said were committed to go to jail, two of whom had oxygen tanks strapped over their shoulders. One was on oxygen 24 hours a day, several had black lung disease, and one was a Vietnam veteran with Agent Orange poisoning.

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A retired miner with an oxygen tank sits handcuffed in the paddy wagon before being hauled away to jail for civil disobedience. (Photo by Mike Elk)

Roberts, who speaks with the passion and rhythm of an evangelical preacher (“Jesus was an organizer,” he declares), read from the Bible to chasten Peabody and Arch managements, urging them to pray to understand the error of their ways, and to repent. He called for a moment of silence for those in hospice “who will not see the morning come,” others with lung, heart and blood problems, “who without their medicines will not live.”

“I urge the people at Peabody to think about what they are doing to them,” he said. “We march for them, and ask God’s guidance in returning everybody to their homes and the strength to return here again, and again and again and again.”

The union had bused in the miners and retirees from the mining towns throughout southern Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia, where most of the Patriot mines have closed down. And it has been hammering its message about corporate greed and community abandonment in two TV ads that have been airing this month in the St. Louis area, as well as billboards in prominent areas.

For more information about the coal companies’ shakedown of miners, check out my previous blogs here, here and here.

And stay tuned. As Roberts said, the miners will be back. And they won’t back down.