Bankrupt Patriot Coal seeks end to retiree healthcare plans

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

US | Tue Sep 22, 2015 12:57pm EDT

Bankrupt Patriot Coal seeks end to retiree healthcare plans

BY TOM HALS

Bankrupt Patriot Coal Corp asked a U.S. judge to allow it to end its obligation for retiree healthcare for its non-union employees, saying no potential buyer of its assets would agree to take on the cost.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May, its second in three years, due to plunging prices for its coal and tighter regulations.

The company began an auction on Monday for the bulk of its assets, which includes mines in West Virginia and reserves in other states. Patriot has not said if the private auction had concluded.

"No purchaser of the debtors' assets is willing to assume these obligations," the company said in a filing late Monday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Virginia. "The debtors will lose the ability to fund their operating expenses much less any other obligations such as retiree related expenses within a matter of weeks."

Patriot has 969 non-union retirees who would be affected by the request.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/22/us-patriotcoal-bankruptcy-idUSKCN0RM25120150922

[shenmue]

1. ...

[gratuitous]

2. Isn't that nice?

You put in your whole career in the mines, avoided getting killed to get to retirement, and now the company would like to terminate your health benefits because it's just too darned expensive. Sorry 969 retirees, looks like you made a bad decision all those years ago. Better luck next time.

I wonder if CEO Bennett K. Hatfield will be missing any paychecks or other compensation because the company has gone banko for the second time in three years?

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

3. "Patriots" indeed

Fucking assholes.

[Wankle Ronnie]

4. The first thing that has to go is the CEO's salary, and the rest of the upper management

are terminated due to redundancy due to bankruptcy.

[tech3149]

5. In case you haven't followed the story, that was the original game plan

It was spun off from Peabody and saddled with the responsibility for the pension plan of former Peabody employees without any resources to fulfill the obligation.
This has been part of the corporate playbook for decades.

[One_Life_To_Give]

6. Pension Plans, as solid as a promisary note from the employer

For all the good things about pension plans. This has long been one of the major downfalls. Until the cash is somewhere with your name on it. It can be made to disappear. Be it bankruptcy as above or the old faithful force reduction the month before being vested.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Oh, that would be 'Patriot' Coal the mass polluter?

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- More than 100,000 gallons of coal slurry poured into an eastern Kanawha County stream Tuesday in what officials were calling a "significant spill" from a Patriot Coal processing facility.

Emergency officials and environmental inspectors said that roughly six miles of Fields Creek had been blackened and that a smaller amount of the slurry made it into the Kanawha River near Chesapeake.
...
This is at least the third slurry incident since 2010 at the Kanawha Eagle cite. In late November, black water was discharged into South Hollow Stream, and ended up in Fields Creek. The company was fined $663.

In October of 2010, there was a slurry line break that discharged into Spicelick and Joes Creek, impacting about 3 miles of stream. The company was fined $22,400.

- See more at: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/News/201402110032#sthash.eqU9spI6.dpuf

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201402110032

So their bankruptcy has nothing to do with their appalling environmental record? No, they just blame 'tighter regulations' - meaning they're not allowed to continue poisoning the rivers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024483254

[KentuckyWoman]

8. Medicare for all.

[justhanginon]

9. The evil that corporations get away with on a daily basis

staggers one's mind. Always, always at the expense of employees or former employees. Yet, the instigators always seem to get by and still collect princely sums of money while everyone else's future is cast aside with no thought or regrets. This all goes back to Peabody Coal one of the scummiest corporations on the planet.
I hope some day they all get every bit of what is coming to them.