Evangelistic UMW President Cecil Roberts in Pinckneyville to rally mining pensioners

The forever evangelistic president of the United Mineworkers of America--Cecil Roberts--was in Pinckneyville Wednesday morning to rally the legions of pensioners and a far fewer number of working miners before a national rally June 14 in Lexington, Ky.

The backdrop is an industry where 50 mining companies have declared bankruptcy and 26,000 miners have lost their jobs.

"We're in the fight of our lives," said a union vice-president in introducing Roberts. "But, we've never lost a battle and never lost a fight."

"We will take your pension fight to the courthouse, to the statehouse and to the White House," Roberts told miners. "You are the most patriotic union in America," he said in asking war veterans and their families to stand. "It's time for the politicians to stand up for the people who have protected this country."

Before the rally began Roberts and members of the UMWA delegation presented retired Local 1820 president Bill Tillars with a plague of appreciation for his years of service and support of the union.

Roberts opened his 40 minutes of remarks by reflecting on the 1974 pension agreement which has paid out over $2.4 billion in pensions to retirees.

"We can't escape the fact that 20,000 of our pensioners have died," he said.

"We have sued Peabody Coal Co. and Arch Minerals and Patriot Coal" and in the face of rulings less favorable to the UMWA have still paid out $340 million in benefits.

"We are a union of promise keepers," Roberts said, "and they should be made to keep their promises."

"If you tell a coal miner something we expect you do it," he said.

"The CEO of Peabody Coal Co. and the CEO of Arch Minerals and the CEO of Patriot Coal Co. can kiss our ass," he said.

Roberts asked members who had traveled to rallies across the nation to stand, then he asked those who were taken to jail during those rallies to come forward. He shook their hands. "He told those who had gone to jail (some of them now older), "The good thing about getting older is that life in prison is not as long as it used to be."

"We have spent $10 million of your money in the fight to save your benefits. There is no backing down and no quitting," he said.

After the rally, one miner commented said, "It sounded like the speech in Marion."

Another miner who lives just off of Rt. 51 south of Du Quoin near the skating rink, said he was looking for a little less evangelism and a little more detail about how the fight to save pensions was going.

He said the systemic problem with the industry is that the old Bituminous Coal Operators Association disbanded and there are so many evolutions of coal company ownership that the promises and benefits are all being lost.

Another miner said, "You can look the man in the eye you shook hands with in the 1970s and believe in the same promises," he said.

Roberts closed by saying that the UMWA has outlived "the many who have spoken of our elimination are all gone and we are still standing."

He said he testified to the United States Senate and there is support for federal legislation that would help UMWA pensioners "if it ever gets to the floor of Congress."

He asked those who have boarded buses in the past or driven to rallies to join him in another rally in Lexington, Ky. on June 14, which is Flag Day.

Some said they will again go and participate.

Legislators from coal states had pressed for federal help to prevent what some have described as a looming national crisis: The United Mine Workers of America's retirement and health-care funds currently support about 120,000 former miners and their families nationwide, but the account balances have rapidly declined as some coal companies shed dues-paying workers and others filed for bankruptcy protection. Without intervention, some of the funds - chiefly those associated with firms in bankruptcy - could run out of cash later this year, Congressional officials say.

The International Executive Board of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), meeting at UMWA headquarters May 19, heard reports from Trustees of the UMWA Health and Retirement Funds and the Patriot Voluntary Employee Beneficial Association (VEBA) about the rapidly deteriorating status of the health care and pension funds covering tens of thousands of retirees throughout the Appalachian and Midwestern coalfields.

"The Trustees made it abundantly clear that there is no more time to wait if these funds are to be preserved," UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said. "With the current depression in the coal market the contributions to the 1974 Pension Fund have been cut by two-thirds from last year's levels.

"More and more companies are receiving approval from bankruptcy courts to stop paying into the 1974 Fund, which will cause that situation to only get worse," Roberts said. "The 1974 Fund pays out over $600 million per year to 89,000 retired coal miners and widows - an average benefit of $560 per month. Cutting those benefits won't save the Pension Fund. Only Congress can do that, by living up to our nation's 70-year promise to these retired miners and their widows."

Roberts also noted that at least 21,000 retirees are at risk of losing their health care coverage at the end of the year due to the bankruptcies that have occurred in the coal industry in 2012 and 2015. "This situation is especially critical for them," Roberts said.

"These miners worked for 25, 30, 40 or more years, always believing that the federal government would live up to the obligation it made to them in the White House in 1946 to guarantee retirement benefits," Roberts said. "But they are now confronted with the very real possibility that this will be the first Congress to abandon that obligation in 70 years, making them feel as if they've been kicked to the curb.