Cumberland Mine workers OK five-year deal with Iron Senergy
Workers at the Cumberland Mine overwhelmingly approved a new contract agreement with Iron Senergy, the United Mine Workers of America announced Tuesday.
The five-year agreement included improvements in wages and other contract areas, while health care and other benefits remained unchanged, UMWA said in a release.
More than 80% of Cumberland Mine workers had voted for the agreement, said UMWA Chief of Staff Phil Smith.
Depending on the position, workers could see 20% to 25% increases over the life of the agreement, Smith said.
At the same time, UMWA also announced a new contract including workers at all American Consolidated Natural Resources, Inc. operations in West Virginia and Ohio. The two agreements cover more than 2,000 UMWA members,
Iron Senergy did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The UMWA had negotiated a tentative agreement on behalf of Cumberland miners in July. After hearing an explanation of the contract, union members voted against the agreement, sending it back for further negotiations.
While things hadn’t gotten contentious, the murky economic picture for the industry had made things more complicated, Smith said.
“When you’re negotiating labor agreements in the best of times, it’s usually not easy,” he said. “But you know right now are not the best of times for the coal industry. So being able to negotiate agreements that had significant wage increases we felt was pretty important, and we were able to do that.”
Smith said coal prices are at the lowest point in some time, particularly for the bituminous coal found locally. The domestic coal market has continued to shrink, while ACNR and Iron Senergy are also seeing the effects of a tumultuous export market, Smith said.
“That’s always a globally competitive marketplace,” he said. “Unfortunately, with the kind of tariffs we’re seeing bounce back and forth between countries, that has an effect on the price of U.S. coal, so the market conditions aren’t as good as they could be, or have been in the past.”