Apr 3, 2017 3 min read

Legislative action to continue health care benefits for retired miners who worked at United Mine Workers-represented coal mines and to shore up the UMW’s ailing pension plan once again is coming down to the wire, although a local union official is “confident” of a resolution.

If no action is taken by the end of the month, about 22,600 retired miners who worked for companies that filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and 2015, including those employed at Alpha Natural Resources’ Emerald Mine near Waynesburg, will lose their health benefits.

Many of those retirees are becoming anxious, said Ed Yankovich, UMW international vice president of District 2.

“People who have medical problems and who wonder if they will have the insurance to pay for it, absolutely, they’re worried,” he said.

The union has been fighting for more than a year for the Miners Protection Act, a bill that will provide long-term funding not only for the health benefits of retired miners who worked for bankrupt coal companies but also for the union’s ailing pension plan.

The Senate is expected to address the issue in a continuing resolution that must be approved to fund government operations after April 30, he said.

“We feel confident they’ll do something in the Senate by the end of the month,” Yankovich said.

The benefits for some of those retirees had been set to expire in December; however, Congress approved a similar continuing funding resolution then that extended the benefits another four months.

What might make action on the legislation now a little more precarious is the Congressional calendar. Congress is expected to be off for two weeks this month and will be in session for only seven days.

The Miners Protection Act would use excess money in the Abandoned Mine Land Fund to shore up the union’s health care and pension programs. It has received strong support in the Senate from U.S. Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Joe Manchin D-W.Va. and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.

However, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has also introduced a separate bill that would provide funding only for the health care benefits and would not address the union’s pension fund.

Yankovich said the union hopes Congress will address both the health care and pensions funds.

The union pension program can continue to provide benefits for the “near future,” he said, but eventually its solvency will have to be addressed.

“Clearly it will have to be fixed,” he said.

In pushing the bill, the UMW maintains it is only asking Congress to keep the “promise” the federal government made to union miners in 1946.

That “promise” of lifetime pensions and health benefits was first made then during negotiations between the UMW and the federal government, which had seized the nation’s coal mines to resolve long-running strikes. That provision was included in all subsequent union contracts.

In recent years, however, health care benefits for many retired miners were adversely impacted by coal company bankruptcies. The pension plan, which was almost fully funded prior to the 2008 recession, also now faces insolvency. The plan provides benefits to about 90,000 retirees and covers future claims for an additional 16,000 miners.