Mine Workers Union Rallies in St. Louis

10 arrested as hundreds of mine workers protest coal company in St. Louis
St. Louis Post Dispatch
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http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/arrested-in-mine-worker-protest-of-coal-company-in-st/article_065340f5-477e-5884-9b6c-c4a1eccb54e1.html


 


ST. LOUIS • Police arrested 10 union mine workers who sat in Seventh Street today outside Peabody Energy headquarters downtown as hundreds of fellow protesters cheered.

The workers and retirees came to St. Louis to draw attention to what they see as poor treatment by Patriot Coal Corp., a company spun off from Peabody five years ago that now claims it can’t afford to pay its debts. A hearing on Patriot's bankruptcy is being held today in federal court here.

The mine workers say the protest is a bid to save health care and pension benefits at risk of being stripped away during the Chapter 11 proceeding. They are trying to put public pressure on Peabody Energy, but the St. Louis company said it has lived up to its obligations. Any dispute is between workers and Patriot Coal, according to Peabody Energy, and should be decided in bankruptcy court.

About 800 mine workers and supporters rallied outside the federal courthouse four blocks away from Peabody Energy headquarters, then marched to the coal company's offices at 701 Market Street.

United Mine Workers of America president Cecil E. Roberts and nine other union members took places sitting on the pavement on 7th Street. Police officers lined the street.

After prayers, and the singing of Amazing Grace by the protesters, a police lieutenant moved in and told Roberts and the others they had to disperse. When they didn't, they were handcuffed with plastic ties and moved to waiting police vans. They were held for failure to disperse, an ordinance violation.

The miners, members of the United Mine Workers, say Patriot or its predecessors should be held accountable for promises made years ago to provide benefits needed by retirees struggling to get by.

As the crowd stood in Kiener Plaza, facing Peabody and chanting, a few faces were seen high above, peering from the mirrored glass windows.

At a rally outside the courthouse earlier, Roberts denounced Peabody in a fiery speech with many references to religious faith and God's judgment. “This is just a scam by Peabody,” Roberts said. “They are trying to bamboozle us. They have $1,000-an-hour lawyers and $1-an-hour morals.”

Joining mine workers from Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia and other states were St. Louis area members of the steelworkers, autoworkers, communication workers and other unions. Organizers said about 500 people came by bus from other states.

Roberts told the crowd that his father, Cecil Roberts Sr. of Cabin Creek, W.V., died with dignity in 2007 because of the health care he was promised during his working years for Peabody. “I am not going to sit idly by while they take away something that my daddy built,” he said.

David Jones, 62, of Centertown, Ky., worked in a Peabody strip mine not far from the old Paradise mine, made famous by the song by John Prine about Mr. Peabody's coal train. Jones said he and a delegation from Local 9800 in western Kentucky are here because they are afraid they will lose their health care in the bankruptcy. They said they believe the company executives planned this all along.

"They are trying to double-cross us," Jones said. "If we are not careful, they are going to take everything we have worked for. We gave them the best years of our live, and then they try to treat us like this."

Ty Becker of Evansville, Ill., led a group from Local 2412 in Marissa. Becker, 64, said he and his wife, Sue, two years younger, rely upon the health care promised to retirees. Becker said it would be a great hardship to lose it.

"This is just greed on the part of the companies," Becker said.

Ironically, many of those who traveled to St. Louis never worked a day for Patriot, even though the company’s fate in bankruptcy court will shape theirs.

The responsibility to fund their retirement benefits was transferred from one company to another over the years as part of corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Now, Patriot says, those health care obligations it acquired are too big of a burden.

In its bankruptcy filing, the company cited “unsustainable labor-related legacy liabilities” among the reasons it sought Chapter 11 protection.

Patriot hasn’t formally asked the court for permission to shed its retiree health care obligations, but the union believes it’s only a matter of time.

The union is hoping the court will protect its members. But it is already looking to predecessor companies with deeper pockets — Peabody and Arch Coal Inc.

The union in October filed a lawsuit against both companies in U.S. District Court in West Virginia to force them to continue providing health care and pension benefits.

Playing on the “too big to fail” label applied to Wall Street banks that received billions of dollars in federal aid amid the financial crisis, the union argues that Patriot was “designed to fail” because it was so loaded down with billions of dollars of retiree benefit obligations and environmental liabilities that it couldn’t possibly survive cyclical downturns in the coal industry.

Peabody disagrees, and contends that Patriot was a successful standalone company after the spinoff, one whose market value quadrupled within a year.

Patriot’s bankruptcy, the company argues, was prompted by unrelated circumstances. Patriot bought a rival coal producer just before the financial crisis, tougher environmental regulations and a natural gas glut eroded coal demand and prices.

Meanwhile, Peabody said it has stood by its promise to assume more than $600 million in retiree health care obligations as part of the Patriot spinoff.

“Peabody has lived up to its obligations and continues to do so,” spokesman Vic Svec said in a statement. “The UMWA is fully aware that this is a matter solely between the union and Patriot Coal, and the proper place for deciding such issues is in bankruptcy court — not the court of public opinion.”

Arch Coal, too, has said in the past that it shouldn’t be responsible for Patriot’s obligations.

HuffPost Social Reading
Sarita Gupta, Executive Director, Jobs with Justice and American Rights at Work

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarita-gupta/union-membership-numbers_b_2535239.html

Union Membership Numbers Don't Tell the Whole Story
Posted: 01/23/2013 4:27 pm

This week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report tracking how many working Americans are represented by a labor or trade union. The report indicates overall union density declining, with union membership in the public sector falling 1 percent to 35.9 percent and lowering by .5 percent to 6.6 percent in the private sector.

In other words, now just 11.3 percent of workers in the country are covered by a union contract that enables them to have a collective voice over wages, job security, benefits and treatment on the job.

We all should be troubled by these numbers because the fall of union membership follows the rise of income inequality in this nation. As Nobel-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz argues again and again, until the middle class is strengthened, our economy will be stuck in neutral. And key to a future of shared prosperity, where everyone has the opportunity to work, to secure decent jobs and benefits, and to retire with dignity, is a nation with more union members, a vibrant labor movement, and stronger rights at work. So how did we get here and how can fight back?

Over the last several years, in state after state, corporate-backed politicians like Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Gov. Rick Snyder in Michigan have put collective bargaining rights and middle-class public employee jobs on the chopping block. They've made it harder for their workers to form unions by restricting union rights and privatizing thousands of jobs. So while it's not surprising to see a noticeable drop in public sector union membership -- it's incumbent upon all of us to stand up for the jobs and rights of police officers, firefighters and teachers, and protest extremist policies like this from gaining ground in our communities.

At first glance, you might think these numbers indicate that workers no longer want or need unions. In reality, workers are trying to organize, but outdated labor laws and anti-union employers are standing in their way. Workers are routinely terminated, harassed, silenced and retaliated against for their union support. CEOs enjoy an economic incentive to fire, threaten, and intimidate workers who support a union. Until we strengthen laws and protections for workers who stand up for a union, significant union density and shared prosperity will be out of reach.

Here's more of the complicated truth: the job market is growing increasingly non-union. Farm workers, domestic workers, and independent contractors, are just some of the numerous jobs in this country that aren't afforded union rights. Businesses are even intentionally creating more and more jobs that are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, therefore curbing workers' rights to organize in the process. Employers will classify or hire employees as supervisors, temps or graduate assistants just to get around the current or potential "threat" of organizing, and the possibility of paying their workforce respectably. The business community's shift to an increasingly part-time, temporary and freelance workforce is significantly problematic. The explosion of employers embracing a low-wage, low-benefit contingent business model only exacerbates the decline of union density and good jobs.

Without placing a priority on creating not just jobs but good, union jobs, our economy will remain at a standstill for anyone but the 1 percent.

But there is a light at the end of this tunnel. For every union job shed, there is a worker standing up and fighting for a better workplace. While the BLS numbers don't reflect this renewed commitment to worker organizing, we saw it out in full force this year, from Walmart associates, warehouse workers and guest laborers along the giant retailer's supply chain, to fast food workers, to taxi drivers in our country's biggest cities, to port truck drivers at the nation's largest seaports, to car wash workers in the Bronx and warehouse workers at IKEA.

Even without the protection of the NLRA at times, these workers are joining together to improve their rights and opportunities on the job. That's because workers, unions, workers' centers, and grassroots advocates and leaders like those at Jobs with Justice coalitions are working together to expand and envision new forms of bargaining, and create new paths to worker power for the 21st century. Together, we're not mourning over the decline of unions, we're organizing by building broad-based unity against the attacks on workers, our families and our communities.

In the last three decades, large corporations and Wall Street banks have reorganized themselves into the multinational monstrosities they are now. So our movement must also respond in a way that matches the new challenges of the global economy, decaying federal labor laws, our temp nation, and a world with more billionaire Koch Brothers.

Of course this week's report reminds us we have much to do to make the economy work for everyone again, but it's a challenge we should accept with gusto as the road to economic recovery is paved with ensuring workers' rights to organize and collectively bargain.