With 80,000 members today, UMWA is more of a retirees’ organization than a fighting union — at roughly 1.6 million members, the AFT is one of the largest unions in the country. The former opposes the Green New Deal, the latter supports.
I’m a coal miner who’s an environmentalist. But I can see the mistakes in both the coal industry and in the environmental industry. Every time you take somebody’s job, there’s a face behind that, there’s a family behind that.
Federal officials have floated a number of proposals for dealing with the dilemma of underfunded multi-employer pension plans. Most have one thing in common: they punish the innocent victims. The contrast with the bailout of bankers is striking.
Mullins asked for their latest comments on current proposals to preserve the area, focusing on the 1,600-acre Blair Mountain Battlefield National Register of Historic Places Nomination Area, or the BMBNA.
The companies interested in mining the area include: Aracoma Coal Co., a subsidiary of Alpha Natural Resources; Mingo Logan Coal, a subsidiary of Arch Coal; and WPP LLC, a coal-leasing company with offices in Delaware.
During the time of the mine wars, you had mine guards. Well, now, you have mind guards, They don’t have to use strong-armed tactics anymore. They control the radio. They control the news. They control the schools. When a region or a country doesn’t know its own history, it’s like a person with Alzheimer’s.
The miners union has filed suit claiming that Arch Coal and Peabody Energy designed Patriot Coal to fail—then shifted over a billion dollars in pension and retiree health care debts to Patriot as a ploy to get out of those obligations. The UMWA fears if Peabody and Arch get away with spinning off their obligations to a company designed to collapse, more coal companies will take similar measures.
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