The Militant - April 22, 2013 -- Mine workers build actions to confront Patriot Coal attack on retirees, union

The Militant - April 22, 2013 -- Mine workers build actions to confront Patriot Coal attack on retirees, union:

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BY SETH GALINSKY  
The United Mine Workers union is stepping up its fight against Patriot Coal Corp.’s efforts to use bankruptcy to gut pensions and health care benefits for thousands of working and retired miners and to tear up union contracts.
The union is calling for miners and others to join in demonstrations in St. Louis on April 16 and again when bankruptcy hearings begin there April 29. More than 6,000 miners and supporters marched in Charleston, W.Va., April 1, the largest mobilization of miners in many years.

Peabody Energy Corp. — the largest privately owned coal company in the world — created Patriot Coal in 2007 by spinning off all its union operations east of the Mississippi.
Patriot took on 40 percent of Peabody’s pension and health care liabilities, but just 13.3 percent of its coal reserves.

“Spin-off Creates Multiple Benefits for Peabody,” reads a headline in one of the company’s financial publications in 2007, referring to the company’s jettisoning responsibility for pension and health benefits for some 8,400 retired miners and their families.

In 2008 Patriot bought Magnum Coal, a spinoff from Arch Coal, the second-largest U.S. coal company. Now, more than 90 percent of “Patriot” retirees never worked for Patriot Coal.
In July 2012 Patriot filed for bankruptcy.