MORGANTOWN — The long journey to protect coal miners’ pensions will be one presidential signature from its conclusion on Thursday after the U.S. Senate votes on the spending package the pension bill is wrapped into.
The House of Representatives passed the spending agreement – 12 bills in two packages totaling $1.37 trillion – on Tuesday.
Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., who worked with Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito to pass the pension bill protecting the pensions of 92,000 miners and their widows– praised the House action in a release.
“For years, we’ve been leading the fight to protect the pensions and health care benefits earned by retired miners, and by the end of this week, we can finally say our government is keeping its promise,” McKinley said. “This agreement will provide peace of mind to the 100,000 retirees, widows, and families who depend on the UMWA pension fund. After years of bipartisan effort that I have been proud to lead in the House, we can see the end of the tunnel.
“Over the years, we have worked to keep this issue front and center,” McKinley said. “So much hard work has gone into getting this legislation to this point, and the retired miners and their families, who made their voices heard in Congress, deserve a lot of the credit. This has been a team effort.”
On Wednesday, Manchin devoted a 17-minute Senate floor speech to the pending passage of the Bipartisan American Miners Act.
“The journey has not been short and it sure hasn’t been easy,” he said. The 1974 United Mine Workers of America Pension Plan was solid and solvent until 2008, when the great recession hit. Mass retirements and company bankruptcies exacerbated the loss of contributions from active miners caused by job losses through automation advances.
In 2015, they knew the UMWA plan was underfunded and headed for insolvency. The projected 2022 deadline was pushed up two years by Murray Energy’s October bankruptcy. In addition, three coal company bankruptcies since the 2017 healthcare fix put the healthcare of 13,000 miners in danger.
The Bipartisan American Miners Act would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to require the Treasury Department to transfer additional funds to the UMWA pension plan from excess Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund money. It also will amend the Coal Act to include the 2018 and 2019 bankruptcies in the miners’ healthcare fix that passed in 2017.
Like McKinley, Manchin praised the miners for their regular presence on Capitol Hill to push for the pension and healthcare fixes. “This never would have happened without their relentless dedication.”
Manchin said on the Senate floor he’ll be turning his attention after the New Year to protecting workers across the country whose pensions and healthcare benefits are jeopardized by company bankruptcies.
He’ll be pushing a bill he introduced in October, the Stop Looting American Pensions (SLAP) Act.
The SLAP Act would change current bankruptcy law to increase the priority of workers during bankruptcy proceedings – putting them at the front of the line. It also would mandate that companies must continue to make minimum funding contributions toward pension plans during bankruptcy proceedings, increase look-back periods from two years to six years, prohibit sales of all of the debtor’s assets within 60 days of filing bankruptcy, and expand restrictions on executive pay during bankruptcy.
“Let’s make sure that every working person is protected,” he said.
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