Members of the Mine Workers (UMWA) overwhelmingly ratified a new five-and-a-half-year contract with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA) in a nationwide vote Friday.

Under the contract, workers will receive a $6-an-hour raise over term, their largest pay increase in the union’s 121-year history, according to UMWA President Cecil Roberts.  The raises will begin with a dollar-an-hour increase July 1 and another dollar-an-hour increase on Jan. 1, 2012. Then workers will receive one-dollar increases each year until 2016. The agreement retains health care benefits for active and retired miners with no cuts and preserves the pension plan. The contract also provides increased benefits for sickness, accident, vision and dental and better life insurance terms.

Roberts said:

The membership saw clearly that this agreement provides a strong measure of security for themselves and their families…and they voted accordingly.

Even though the agreement is with the BCOA companies, other coal companies—like Patriot Coal, Alpha Natural Resources, Cliffs Natural Resources, Jim Walter Resources and others—will be bound by the pension language included in the new agreement because they are part of the UMWA Health and Retirement Funds.

“We will be taking this agreement to the other companies immediately, and looking for them to agree to the entire contract,” Roberts said.

Our message to them will be simple:  This is the industry-wide agreement. This is the agreement our members who work at your operations overwhelmingly ratified, and we will accept no less.