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Consol laying off 40% of workers at idled Enlow Fork Mine

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Nearly 40% of the miners who were furloughed when Enlow Fork Mine was idled in mid-April will not return to their jobs when the facility reopens.

Consol Energy Inc., the mine’s owner, filed a WARN notice this month with the state Department of Labor & Industry, saying it will lay off 233 Enlow Fork workers on Aug. 31.

WARN is an acronym for Worker Adjustment and Retaining Notification Act, a federal statute that requires employers with 100 or more employees to give 60 calendar days of notice of closing or mass layoffs.

About 600 work at Enlow Fork during full production. The mine, mostly in Washington County and partly in Greene, has not resumed operations. Southpointe-based Consol idled the operation nearly three months ago because of a large decrease in demand for coal.

The company said in a prepared statement:

“In these unprecedented times, it is extremely difficult to predict when our production at Enlow Fork Mine will return to normal capacity, as it is always our intent to run our operations based on market conditions.

“In the interest of keeping our employees informed and meeting all legal requirements, we issued the WARN notice to a portion of employees who will not be recalled from furlough at this time. Situations can certainly change and we will continue to monitor daily.”

Enlow Fork is one of three mines that make up the Pennsylvania Mining Complex, the largest underground coal complex in North America. Bailey Mine and Harvey Mine are the others.

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