In case you missed it, another judge stuck a dagger in the hearts of retired coal miners

[DainBramaged]

The Patriot Coal bankruptcy filing voids the company's pensions for retired miners, many of whom have health problems related to their years in the mine, including black lung disease.


Bankrupt coal mining company Patriot Coal will be able to void its agreement with the United Mine Workers union (UMWA) and stop funding pensions for retired miners, thanks to a ruling from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of Missouri. In a decision [PDF] dated May 29, Judge Kathy A. Surratt-States said that the failing company was authorized to rip up its union collective bargaining agreements as part of a plan to trim $150 million in annual labor costs during Chapter 11 restructuring.

“This ruling represents a major step forward for Patriot, allowing our company to achieve savings that are critical to our reorganization and the preservation of more than 4,000 jobs,” said Bennett K. Hatfield, the company’s CEO, in a statement. ”The savings contemplated by this ruling, together with other cost reductions implemented across our company, will put Patriot on course to becoming a viable business.”

But for the company’s current and former employees, the future looks much less rosy. Thanks to the ruling, Patriot Coal will now be able to move forward with a plan that could slash retirement and health benefits for up to 13,000 retirees. That includes many who are suffering from the ailments typical of long-time miners, such as black lung disease.


http://www.nbcnews.com/id/52049630/t/judge-coal-company-can-drop-retirement-benefits-workers/?lite=&lite=obnetwork

[Savannahmann]

1. It's a shame the Judge didn't delay that part of the ruling for six months.

The Exchanges will be up and running then and the people could have gotten insurance under the ACA.

[MotherPetrie]

2. More proof (not that any is needed) of how the deck is stacked against workers.

Jobs are saved so they can ruin their health working for a company that will then abandon them when they are old and sick from their work for it.

[Mopar151]

3. Nothing more or less than criminal fraud

And they hang the threat of closing mines (jobs) over local and state prosecutors. Noice.

[rhett o rick]

4. The money saved by not paying the retiree benefits will go directly into

the pockets of the wealthy.

When our judges rule like this, it isnt America, it's the United States of Corporations.

The judge must be as evil as the owners.

[KansDem]

14. "Pockets of the wealthy"

Patriot Coal, union spar in court over executive bonuses

Retired union miners packed the benches of a St. Louis courtroom Monday as attorneys for Patriot Coal made their cases that managers should be given nearly $7 million in retention bonuses for sticking with the ailing company.

Wearing white T-shirts that read “Peabody Lied!” — a reference to the energy company that spun off Patriot in 2007 — the miners, and a courtroom of dark-suited attorneys, sat through more than five hours of testimony, much of it from Bennett Hatfield, Patriot president and chief executive.

Patriot filed for bankruptcy in July. The preceding month company executives, with the help of outside consultants, began developing a “critical employee retention plan” aimed at keeping people seen as key to the company’s survival.

“If we lose key managers ... operational performance will deteriorate,” Hatfield told the court. “That will push us further toward chaos.”

The plan would give about $6.9 million in retention bonuses to roughly 110 managers with the company, through 2014. The Creve Coeur-based company employs about 4,000 people and runs 11 mining complexes.

Hatfield told the courtroom that attrition rates had gone up significantly over the last year as managers have left for competitors. “These people are taking jobs with other companies that aren’t in bankruptcy,” he said. “No one wants to work for a bankrupt company.”

He pointed out that nonunion employees have taken pay and benefit cuts in recent years.

--more--
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/patriot-coal-union-spar-in-court-over-executive-bonuses/article_1d027c96-fd0e-5d11-9f20-23a26da79648.html

$6,900,000 / 110 managers = $62,727.27 each

[byeya]

5. If that's justice then we proles need mercy - until we reverse the tide.

[DainBramaged]

6. The bottom of the article says it all

Patriot Coal is actually the child of a much larger corporation: Peabody Energy. When Peabody Energy created Patriot in 2007, it transferred many of its pension and health care obligations to the smaller coal company, even though many of the workers covered by those benefits “retired before the spinoff and never worked for Patriot,” according to Reuters.

UMWA claims that Peabody did this because Patriot was “designed to fail,” in the words of a paper [PDF] on their website written by Temple University finance professor Bruce Rader. Patriot Coal, he writes, “seems to have been created to fail in the long run,” so that it could use bankruptcy to get out paying health and retirement benefits.

[SunSeeker]

7. Sure sounds like bankruptcy fraud to me.

These CEOs should be in jail instead of lapping up the retirement benefits of these poor workers.

[kristopher]

16. ++1 & kick for this reply

In a fair and free press this would dominate the story.

You should add it to the OP.

[SunSeeker]

8. But of course student loan debt can NEVER be discharged in bankruptcy...

because that would be unfair to the poor banks with black lung...er...black bottom lines.

[bluedeathray]

9. So once they become a "viable" business

Are they going to make good on their obligations?

This is the kind of anti-American business policy that's becoming standard practice.

Reminds me of the way so-called "illegal" Mexicans are treated.

[tardybar]

10. coal miners

It is disgusting, However they usually do vote against their interests

[hatrack]

11. Vote for elephants, get fucked by elephants

nt

[WinkyDink]

13. The UMWA endorsed Gore in 2000; Kerry, 2004; Obama, 2008; nobody in 2012.

[WinkyDink]

12. So, ONE side bargained in BAD faith, in retrospect. And miners MADE CONCESSIONS FOR THIS FUTURE.

I had a grandfather who got and have an uncle who gets BL payments, from the coal mines of eastern PA.

I always side with the Mollies.

[Swede Atlanta]

15. Why do we have Chapter 11?

No where else in the world do you allow a company that has been mismanaged to screw their customers, employees, suppliers, etc. by "reorganizing".

If they are no longer viable as a business then they liquidate. Assets are sold off and proceeds distributed. Executives are screwed.

The idea with "reorganization" was that there was likely some inherent value in continuing the business so that rather than everyone losing big-time, it might be possible to pare of some expenses here and there and position the company for success. That sounds wonderful but the reality is that the only ones that win in this picture are the executives of the bankrupt company. Let's see...they were so incompetent they led the company to bankruptcy but they get big bonuses?

It is only in America where white is black and rich is poor, etc. could this happen.

[former9thward]

18. Should GM and Chrysler have been liquidated?

They reorganized with the corporate welfare given them by Bush and Obama. Would you rather have seen those employees on the street?

[Earth_First]

17. ...and the band plays on

This is just the soundcheck.

[Arctic Dave]

19. Be a shame of something happened to the parasites.

A real shame.

[Mopar151]

20. Where is a drone strike when the world really needs one?

These assclowns will kill more American patriots than Ali-Cahooter, and I bet some of them 'ol boys in Langley can find out a tee time and take out a cart back on the par 5.