Why 10,000 coal miners are descending on Washington

As many as 10,000 coal miners are expected to rally at the Capitol Thursday to push for the passage of a bill that would prevent the loss of health-care benefits for union miners. 

|
Joe Maiorana/AP/File
In this March 10, 2006 file photo, Ohio coal miners head into the mine for a shift inside the Hopedale Mine near Cadiz, Ohio.

Approximately 10,000 coal miners are expected to rally in front of the Capitol Thursday to push for the passage of a bill that would prevent the loss of health-care benefits for 23,000 coal miners and their families and shore up pension funds for as many as 120,000. 

The bill's sponsors, primarily two senators from West Virginia, say there is a moral obligation to pass the bill, as it fulfills an agreement made between the federal government and the United Mine Workers of America in 1946.

But the bill's mostly-Republican critics, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), say the legislation, which has been bottled up in Congress for more than a year, is too costly and could set a precedent for bailing out other multi-employer pension plans. Other opponents of the bill, including some coal county lawmakers, have also expressed concerns that the bill only includes members of the United Mine Workers of America, excluding non-union coal workers.

"If we can’t fulfill this commitment to people who basically built this country, then shame on all of us," said one of the bill's sponsors, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), during a panel discussion on the issue at the National Press Club in Washington on Wednesday. "I don’t know how any of us can go and face people who are losing everything."

As coal mining companies struggle to compete with natural gas while complying with recent environmental regulations, a number of companies have entered bankruptcy, while others have shed dues-paying union workers. Now, industry leaders and politicians are grappling with how to save the pensions and health care benefits of coal workers. 

The bill pushed by miners on Thursday "would allow excess funds from royalties paid by coal companies to reclaim and restore land disturbed by mining to be directed into providing health care for retired miners and shoring up their pension funds," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The bill is estimated to cost anywhere between $2 billion and $3 billion. 

The legislation has the support of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who came under fire earlier this year for her remark that as clean energy expands, "we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." The coal mining industry has become a focus of the upcoming presidential election, as Lucy Schouten reported for The Christian Science Monitor in May.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why 10,000 coal miners are descending on Washington
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2016/0908/Why-10-000-coal-miners-are-descending-on-Washington
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe