UMW rallying for pensions, benefits
WAYNESBURG – Thousands of union coal miners, many of them from Southwestern Pennsylvania, were scheduled to leave early this morning for a United Mine Workers rally in Washington, D.C., to support legislation to preserve the union’s health care and pension benefits.
Thirty-three buses were traveling from Pennsylvania – more than 120 from throughout the country – to take union miners, their families and supporters to the 11 a.m. “Keep the Promise” rally today in Union Square at the U.S. Capitol. Buses were scheduled to leave about 4 a.m. from Waynesburg, Carmichaels and Uniontown.
“This is extremely important,” said Ed Yankovich, UMW international vice president of District 2 based in Uniontown. “I don’t think you could say there is anything of greater importance.”
The Miners Protection Act would provide funding for health care benefits for retired miners from bankrupt coal companies and will supplement the union’s underfunded pension plan. This is are not just a “comfort item” to many of these pensioners and their families, Yankovich said, “it’s life or death.”
Numerous bankruptcies in the coal industry have jeopardized the funds that provide health care benefits to union retirees. If nothing is done, health care benefits for retired miners from the bankrupt Alpha Natural Resources, for instance, will expire this time next year, Yankovich said.
The union’s 1974 pension plan, in addition, faces problems as fewer miners are working to pay into the plan. The pension plan, which was almost fully funded prior to the 2008 recession but now faces insolvency, provides pensions to about 90,000 retirees and covers future claims for an additional 16,000 miners.
Legislation proposed as a fix, Senate Bill 1714, would use the excess money in the Abandoned Mine Land fund to support the pension plan and provide health benefits to those who worked for companies that have filed for bankruptcy. The bill is expected to be considered next week by the Senate Finance Committee.
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., is a co-sponsor of the bill. U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who sits on the finance committee and who previously said he was undecided about the legislation, issued a news release Wednesday afternoon saying he, too, will vote in favor of the bill.
His Democratic opponent in the fall, Katie McGinty, held a press conference earlier Wednesday questioning Toomey’s failure to take a stance on the issue.
The union’s name for the rally refers to the “promise” made by the federal government to union miners in 1946. To counter a proposed strike at a time the country was recovering from World War II, President Harry Truman issued an executive order for the Secretary of the Interior to seize the nation’s coal mines. Negotiations between the union and federal government, as a result of that action, led to the Krug Lewis Agreement, creating the promise of lifetime health benefits and retirement security for the nation’s miners.
The proposed legislation will affirm the commitment the government made to union miners in 1946, said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., one of the bill’s sponsors, at a press conference Wednesday morning.
Manchin gave a history of the “promise” made to the nation’s miners and spoke of legislation, including the Coal Act of 1992, that affirmed that commitment and gave miners “legitimate expectations” of lifetime health and pension benefits.
“That is what they were promised during their working years; that is how they planned their retirement years, and that commitment should be honored,” Manchin said.
The coal that these miners produced helped this country through two world wars and made it become the super power of the world, he said.
“If we can’t fulfill this commitment, this promise we made to people who basically made this country the greatest country on earth, then shame on all of us,” he said.