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Omaha Steve

(99,054 posts)
Fri Apr 12, 2013, 08:41 PM Apr 2013

Mine Workers and supporters to plant 1,000 crosses at Kiener Plaza in St. Louis, representing miners


FULL title: Mine Workers and supporters to plant 1,000 crosses at Kiener Plaza in St. Louis, representing miners killed at Peabody, Arch and Patriot mines and those currently at risk due to threatened cut-off of health care benefits

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M E D I A A D V I S O R Y

For Immediate Release: April 12, 2013


Advisory for Tues., April 16 @ 10 am Mine Workers and supporters to plant 1,000 crosses at Kiener Plaza in St. Louis, representing miners killed at Peabody, Arch and Patriot mines and those currently at risk due to threatened cut-off of health care benefits

St. Louis – Members of the United Mine Workers union, joined by labor, faith and community supporters, will plant 1,000 white crosses at Kiener Plaza, across from Peabody Energy headquarters, in St. Louis on Tuesday, April 16th beginning at 10 am.


The crosses will be in memory of the 666 fatalities that have occurred at mines operated by Peabody Energy, Arch Coal and Patriot Coal or their subsidiaries since 1903, and will sybolize the more than 22,000 active and retired miners, dependents and surviving spouses who will be at risk if Patriot Coal, Peabody Energy and Arch Coal succeed in their efforts to effectively eliminate contractually-guaranteed health care benefits.



Who: UMWA International President Cecil Roberts, UMWA International Secretary Treasurer Dan Kane, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists President Emeritus Bill Lucy, Illinois State AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Tim Drea, Boilermakers International Industrial Sector Vice President Jim Pressley, coal miners, retirees and family members; St. Louis-area labor activists, faith and community leaders.

What: Planting of 1,000 white crosses in Kiener Plaza

When and Where:

10:00 a.m.– (CDT) Tuesday April 16th – March begins from Crowne Plaza Hotel, 4th and Pine Streets

10:15 a.m. – Assemble at Kiener Plaza, near 7th and Market Streets, for rally and planting of crosses.



“The corporate executives trying to get away with this outrageous scam tell us we should make decisions based on ‘fact,’ not ‘emotion,’” said UMWA President Cecil Roberts. “Here’s a fact: If you take away the benefits retired miners and their spouses need for medicine, doctor visits and hospital care, they will become sicker and poorer. And they will die younger.”



“The companies want to argue this case in bankruptcy court – where they can hide behind their $1,000-an-hour lawyers – instead of in the court of public opinion,” said UMWA Secretary Treasurer Dan Kane. “No wonder they don’t want anybody to watch – because what they’re doing to sick, retired miners and their widows and widowers is just plain wrong.”



Protestors will also return to St. Louis on Monday, April 29. The U.S. Bankruptcy court is expected to hear a motion on that date about Patriot Coal’s demand to effectively eliminate health care benefits for retired miners and surviving spouses, along with drastic cuts in wages, health care and working conditions for active miners.



Between 10,000 and 11,000 miners and supporters marched on Patriot Coal’s headquarters in Charleston, West Virginia on April 1, and 16 were arrested in a non-violent action. U.S. Senators Jay Rockefeller and Joe Manchin, West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall and West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant addressed a rally at the Charleston Civic Center prior to the march on Patriot Coal.



“At a young age, my mother and my grandmother, Mama Kay, taught me that your word is your bond,” wrote Sen. Manchin in the Charleston Gazette on April 6:



When I looked out into the rally's crowd, I saw men and women who have kept their word. It is time for their employers to keep their promise to the miners who worked hard for them.



Patriot, which filed for bankruptcy in 2012, was spun off from Peabody Energy in 2007 with approximately 43 percent of Peabody’s pension and health care liabilities but just 11 percent of its productive assets. According to Temple University finance professor Bruce Rader, Patriot’s business structure was “designed to fail.”



Patriot also later assumed pension and health care obligations for retired union miners who had worked for Arch Coal, which shed its liabilities in a similar fashion as Peabody. Ninety percent of the retirees Patriot is responsible for never worked for Patriot, but worked for Peabody or Arch instead.



Video of the April 16th event will be livestreamed beginning at 10 am (Central time) at:



http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mineworkers

and live blogged at:

www.FairnessatPatriotNow.blogspot.com



More information about the UMWA campaign for active and retired miners is at FairnessAtPatriot.org

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Mine Workers and supporters to plant 1,000 crosses at Kiener Plaza in St. Louis, representing miners (Original Post) Omaha Steve Apr 2013 OP
k/r limpyhobbler Apr 2013 #1
KICKING! patrice Apr 2013 #2
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