Miners deserve full pension benefits
The United Mine Workers rallied in Washington D.C., last week to call for passage of the Miners Protections Act, legislation that would provide funding to support the union’s pension and health care benefits.
The union’s pension plan has been severely underfunded, primarily as a result of losses suffered in the Great Recession and a downturn in the coal industry that forced many major coal operators into bankruptcy. The legislation would use surplus money in the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund, which was created with revenue from an existing fee on coal production, to support the union’s 1974 pension plan and health care funds.
About 120,000 retired and working miners could be impacted in the next few years if a fix is not implemented now. Congress needs to act.
In Pennsylvania, according to the UMW, 13,269 pensioners receive benefits under the plan: 1,436 in Greene County; 1,587 in Washington County; and 2,120 in Fayette County. Prior to the economic downturn in 2008, the pension plan was 93 percent funded, and projections indicated it would reach full funding within 10 years, UMW President Cecil E. Roberts said, testifying before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in March. The plan also did not pay overgenerous benefits. The average pension, Roberts said, was $530 a month.
The recession, however, resulted in losses that will make it impossible to return to a path of full funding, even though some of the lost ground was recovered. Bankruptcy courts also relieved the coal operators of their pension obligations when they faltered, resulting in even fewer contributors to the plan. And consider, for every working miner paying into the pension plan, 12 retired miners are now drawing checks, the union said.
Supporters of the bill before Congress argued if the pension plan becomes insolvent, pensioners will face benefit cuts and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. will be overwhelmed with billions of dollars in liabilities. Union officials have cited the “promise” of lifetime health care and pensions made by Congress in 1946, after President Harry Truman seized the nation’s coal mines and negotiated the Krug Lewis Agreement, which guaranteed miners lifetime health care and retirement security.
That fact noted, we don’t think fulfilling a promise made seven decades ago is the sole justification to ensure that miners have the pensions and health care benefits they need and deserve. Coal miners who labored for a large portion of their adult lives in what can be a physically difficult and dangerous profession did so understanding when they put in their years, they could retire with a pension. That should be promise enough. What might ultimately be needed is a change in pension laws to make sure the pension money is set aside and will be there even if a coal company closes it doors.
President Obama has offered proposals aimed at reviving coal communities that have been battered by the industry’s decline. Assuring that some of the most-vulnerable residents of those communities receive the pensions they were promised would be a good way to start.