In the Coal Fields, a Novel Way to Get Rid of Pensions Is Born

[Coyotl]

http://truth-out.org/news/item/13691-in-the-coal-fields-a-novel-way-to-get-rid-of-pensions-is-born

Morgantown, West Virginia - If you are an individual struggling with debt, your options are limited. But if you are a coal company, you may be able to take advantage of a creative new strategy to shed your obligations.

Over the past decade, Peabody Energy and Arch Coal, the nation's largest coal companies, offloaded large amounts of retiree healthcare obligations to new companies that now face bankruptcy. The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) says that the spin-offs were designed to fail in order to clean the companies' books of their retiree debts.

In 2007, Peabody Energy spun off a new company, Patriot Coal, which inherited 10 unionized mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. Along with the mines, Patriot took on $557 million in healthcare obligations to UMWA retirees. In 2008, Patriot bought Magnum, which had been similarly spun off from Arch Coal three years earlier. From Magnum, Patriot inherited another $500 million in obligations to retired miners, according to the UMWA.

Oddly, for a 5-year-old company, Patriot wound up with nearly three times as many retirees as active employees, more than 90 percent of whom never worked for the company. Overburdened by its debts, in July of 2012 Patriot declared bankruptcy.

.....

[MountainLaurel]

1. Doesn't surprise me in the least

[mike_c]

2. fucking rat bastards....

THIS is why we need strong regulation of corporations. VERY strong regulation.

[reteachinwi]

16. and single payer health care

Employers are not willing to provide this benefit any longer.

[WillyT]

3. HUGE K & R !!!

[Angry Dragon]

4. Life in prison for them all

[Coyotl]

18. Now we are talking. This is "criminal" conduct, defrauding people.

[leftstreet]

5. DURec

[liberal N proud]

6. Companies are just doing anything they can to get out from under things they promised employees

Pensions are a thing of the past even for those who have worked 40 years banking on getting one when they retire.

[KamaAina]

7. Sen. Warren, pickup on Line One

Elizabeth Warren, Line One.

[KamaAina]

8. Why can't San Jose do that?

We've got filthy 47%er bloodsucking pensioned union retirees, too. Why can't Mayor Reed just declare that they actually worked for the City of Reedville, then annex it back into San Jose? Problem solved!

[bongbong]

9. They HAD to do it

After all, other people at the club were laughing at the coal company executives because they only had 3 yachts.

[Scuba]

10. Despicable.

[RedstDem]

11. CEO's of such buisnesses that do these type of things to people

should face the death penalty.

[JDPriestly]

12. We need a Democratic Congress and we need to get them to do something about this problem.

ERISA is a joke in this respect.

[Pakid]

13. This is the Republican plan for us

Bankrupt everything and leaves us with nothing!!!!

[a kennedy]

14. This just makes me so angry.......

[nineteen50]

15. No need to

regulate corporations they will regulate themselves morally and ethically.

[cpamomfromtexas]

17. More examples of Bankruptcies of Convenience. They're following the airline model of bankruptcies

If this congress does anything it should start by outlawing these types of bankruptcies.

[quakerboy]

19. Perhaps they,

Like the USPS, should be forced to immediately pre fund all retirement benefits for workers.

[Coyotl]

23. That should be the law of the land, secured pensions.

[SheilaT]

20. Sadly, this has been going on for years.

[japple]

21. This is SOP for vulture capitalists and corporate raiders. I know of people who were employed

by textile mills in the Southeast in the 1970s and 1980s who lost their pensions when the industry went through a recession. People who had worked for 30 and 40 years for a company lost their pensions. I knew one man who had to go back to work when he was between 65 and 70 yrs. old. He and his wife were trying to help out their children and grandchildren, but with the pension gone, he couldn't make it on Social Security alone.

[marble falls]

22. I dreamt I saw....

Joe Hill last night
Alive as you or me.

[99Forever]

24. Our government ALLOWS this to happen.

Yes, these corporate assholes deserve to be locked up permanently. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, instead all of the execs will walk away scot-free and rich as fuck.

But the fact that our FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE does absolutely nothing to stop it should piss you off even more.

[Redfairen]

25. k/r*

[bvar22]

26. Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Paradise
aka Mr. Peabody's Coal Train
written & recorded by John Prine