Aug 26, 2015 3 min read

The United Mine Workers will rally Sunday at Ten Mile Creek Park near Clarksville to gain support for legislation to preserve the union’s health care and pension benefit funds that were battered by the 2008 recession and recent coal company bankruptcies.

The union expects 1,500 active and retired miners to attend the rally and picnic, which will begin at 11 a.m. and feature UMW President Cecil E. Roberts as speaker.

“These miners worked 30, 40, some even 50 years to earn their retiree health care and pension benefits,” Roberts said in a news release. “Now, through no fault of their own, these retirees find their benefits in jeopardy.”

The 2008 recession and recent bankruptcies in the coal industry threatened the health care and pension benefits of thousands of retirees, dependents and widows. More than 15,000 miners in Pennsylvania depend on these benefits, Roberts said.

The union’s 1974 pension fund, which covers about 92,000 retired miners who worked at mines in the eastern United States, is now in “critical status,” UMW spokesman Phil Smith said.

The fund was almost fully funded prior to the recession, but then lost about $3 billion. Though it reduced that loss, it would be impossible through investments to bring the funding level up to where it should be, he said. Currently, there are 12 retirees drawing pension checks for each active miner paying into the fund, Smith said.

If the plan goes broke, the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which backs private sector pension programs, would have to assume liabilities and pension checks could be cut.

The union is seeking support for the Miners Protection Act, House Resolution 2403 and Senate Bill 1714, which it said would address these funding issues through existing funding appropriations. The legislation would help support the 1974 pension fund through excess money in a fund established by 2006 legislation to provide health care benefits for miners of coal companies that went out of business.

The fund receives an appropriation of $490 million a year, Smith said. About $200 million of that is not spent and the legislation would allow that excess to be used to help fund the union’s 1974 pension fund.

The legislation also would allow certain miners who lost health benefits following their employers’ bankruptcy to be covered by a benefit plan negotiated by the union in 1993.

This would include miners who worked for Patriot Coal Corp., which filed bankruptcy for a second time in May. Money in a Voluntary Employee Benefit Association fund created by the Patriot bankruptcy would be transferred to the 1993 benefit plan to help cover the costs, Smith said.

The legislation would ensure the federal government and coal operators honor their obligation of lifetime pensions and health benefits to retired miners and their families, Robert said.

That “promise” was first made in 1946, during negotiations between the UMW and the federal government, which seized the nation’s coal mines to resolve long-running strikes and was subsequently written into union contracts for nearly 70 years, Roberts said.

“Most Pennsylvania coalfield legislators from both parties are supporting this legislation, but not all,” Roberts said. “We are encouraging every one of them to get on board and ensure that a promise made is a promise kept.”