The Mine Workers (UMWA) will appeal a federal judge’s decision today to dismiss a class-action suit the union and a group of active and retired miners filed against Peabody Energy and Arch Coal in October. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Charleston, W.Va., charged that the companies had violated federal pension laws when they transferred the health and pension benefits of more than 10,000 active and retired miners to the newly created Patriot Coal Corp. in 2007 to avoid their obligations to the miners.  

Members of the Mine Workers (UMWA) are rallying in St. Louis today, encircling the headquarters of Peabody Energy, as part of ongoing efforts to make the company and associated companies live up to the obligations they made to their workers. While the union reached an agreement with Patriot Coal to make sure that retired miners who primarily worked for Peabody receive those benefits, the long-term funding for those benefits has not yet been secured. Those health care costs were spun off into Patriot, which subsequently filed for bankruptcy. Today's rally is aimed at making Peabody live up to its obligations and fund health care for its retirees.

One hundred years ago on Sunday, southern Colorado miners and their families walked out of the coal mines and mining camps striking for adequate wages, enforcement of state mining laws and union recognition. The strike led to a months-long struggle that culminated in one of the most tragic events in U.S. labor history, the April 20, 1914, Ludlow Massacre.

Yesterday, at the Ludlow Massacre memorial site near Trinidad, several hundred survivors’ descendants, Mine Workers (UMWA) members and officials, historians and others kicked off the centennial commemoration of the strike and massacre. 

How can we get more young members involved in the union?

I could have retired a lot sooner than I did if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that lament from a graying labor leader in my neck of the western Kentucky woods.

Bankruptcy is being used by corporations—and now even by entire cities—as a sword to cut themselves free from legal obligations to workers who earned their pensions and retirement health care benefits. Wednesday’s action session “Bankrupting Retirement: Retirement Security and Bankruptcy as an Employer Strategy” at the 2013 AFL-CIO Convention convened four seasoned veterans of the battle to protect workers from a bankruptcy code skewed in favor of corporations. The discussion was moderated by Brandon Rees, acting director of the AFL-CIO Office of Investment.

In a victory for some 3,100 retired Mine Workers (UMWA) members and a setback for Peabody Energy and its attempt to duck its health care obligations, a U.S. Court of Appeals’ bankruptcy appellate panel today reversed a lower court’s ruling that would have allowed Peabody to shed its responsibilities.

Members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) who work at Patriot Coal operations in West Virginia and Kentucky yesterday ratified a settlement the union reached with the company late last week that makes significant improvements in terms and conditions of employment over a federal Bankruptcy Judge’s order from last May.

More than 2,000 Mine Workers (UMWA) members and retirees, other union members and faith and community activists rallied outside the St. Louis corporate headquarters of Peabody Energy in the latest action demanding fairness for the active and retired miners caught in the 2012 boardroom-orchestrated bankruptcy of Patriot Coal.

The Mine Workers (UMWA) union just announced it has reached a settlement with Patriot Coal on new terms and conditions of employment that makes significant improvements over what federal Bankruptcy Judge Kathy Surratt-States ordered on May 29, and what Patriot implemented on July 1.

Several thousand current and retired Mine Workers (UMWA) and their supporters—including striking fast-food workers—rallied this morning outside the St. Louis headquarters of Arch Coal, protesting the company’s move to slash health care benefits for retired and active miners through corporate chicanery and bankruptcy maneuvers.

A number of workers and retirees were arrested as they sat down in non-violent civil disobedience on the front steps of the Arch Coal building.