mine workers

By Jonathan Neale - Global Climate Jobs, September 16, 2022

By Sam Mardell and Jeremy Richardson - Rocky Mountain Institute, September 15, 2022

Across the United States, the transition from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy is accelerating and will be supercharged by the recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The clean energy transition is creating widespread social benefits ranging from lower and more stable energy costs to improved air quality. However, without thoughtful planning, the shift to clean energy will harm workers who depend on fossil fuels for their livelihoods, as well as the communities where they live and work.

Policymakers have an opportunity to shape a clean energy transition that supports workers and communities instead of leaving them behind. The fossil fuel industry is central to the economic life of communities across the country, and the real risks these communities face in the clean energy transition — job loss, depressed property values, and reduced local tax revenue for social services and institutions — can be devastating. Well-designed, targeted, proactive, and long-term interventions can help diversify local economies and drive new economic activity that aligns the global need for rapid decarbonization with local visions and priorities.

And governments are beginning to take notice of this risk and opportunity. Over the past few years, seven states passed bills designed to support coal workers and communities facing economic transition. The IRA and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021 represent the largest set of investments and resources available to support energy communities in history. These laws could even eclipse 50 years of investments in economic development by the Appalachian Regional Commission.

Building on previous work by key stakeholders, we introduce a policy framework that outlines the risks facing fossil fuel workers and communities in the shift to clean energy and provides guiding principles for supporting them in the transition. RMI’s fossil fuel community recovery and revitalization framework can be used to assess the strengths and gaps in existing legislation and help policymakers and advocates develop and implement comprehensive, strategic policies to support a fair transition from fossil fuels.

RMI’s recovery and revitalization framework consists of three steps:

1. Relief for fossil fuel workers and communities to alleviate losses of local revenue and jobs that occur immediately following fossil fuel facility closure
2. Reclamation of remaining fossil fuel sites to prevent prolonged pollution risks and promote short- and medium-term job creation and local economic activity
3. Reinvestment in fossil fuel communities to promote long-term economic resilience and diversification

By Kateryna Semchuk and Thomas Rowley - Open Democracy, September 14, 2022

Miners and management at a state-owned coal operation in western Ukraine have called a strike over what they say is an attempt to seize control of the mine.

The strike action at Mine No. 9 in the town of Novovolynsk continues the first major workers’ protest in Ukraine since Russia’s 24 February invasion and the Ukrainian government’s announcement of martial law, which forbids all protests.

Last month, the miners prevented a new director from taking up his post, citing his alleged link to an embezzlement scandal at another coal mine in the region.

They also claimed that his appointment had been made on the say-so of local smotriashchiy – a term for the Ukrainian coal sector’s network of corrupt unofficial overseers. That director denied any wrongdoing and stated he was not under investigation.

Now, they say, efforts to take control of the mine have reached a new level and the miners have gone on strike to protect their jobs and working conditions.

They describe a stark sequence of events. On 9 September, a new manager arrived at Mine No. 9 with a lawyer and a dozen private security guards.

By Ben Hunkler - Ohio River Valley Institute, August 25 2022

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) earmarks $16 billion for cleaning up legacy damage from the coal and gas industries, an investment that Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Department of the Interior, has promised will create “good-paying, union jobs” across Appalachia.

Ohio River Valley Institute research shows that BIL funding could create as many as 4,000 jobs reclaiming coal mine damage, primarily in Appalachian counties with disproportionately high unemployment and poverty rates. But how will these jobs compare to the precarious, low- wage jobs that proliferate in the region? They may provide above-average wages, but they likely won’t be union and won’t pay enough to support a family.

Read the text (PDF).

By Daniel Werst - Left Voice, August 18, 2022

The NLRB is imposing a $13 million fine on the UMWA coal miners’ union over a protracted strike in central Alabama. Not just a fine, in fact, but monetary restitution to the company that the strikers are fighting. What explains this profoundly anti-labor decision?

On August 3, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and the Associated Press reported that the subunit of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for Region 10 (much of the South) has ordered the union to pay $13.3 million to Warrior Met Coal.

About 1,000 workers from two mines and two aboveground facilities southwest of Birmingham, Alabama, have been on strike against Warrior Met since April 2021, resisting brutal working conditions. Now the Biden NLRB is demanding the UMWA pay what amounts to $13,000 per striker into the company’s pocket. The government says this is reimbursement for security guards, security cameras, repairs, and production lost because of the strike, plus buses for carrying scabs across picket lines.

This workforce routinely does six-day weeks and 12-hour days. The company operates on Sundays and almost all holidays. A hated company policy fires workers automatically if they miss four days of work in a year, even because of health problems or family emergencies.

Early in the strike, the company offered a raise of $1.50 an hour for 2021 to 2026. Workers retorted that back in 2016 they accepted a $6-an-hour reduction when the company declared bankruptcy and threatened mass layoffs if the workers didn’t “help” shore up its profitability. More than 95 percent of the strikers voted no when the UMWA leadership put up this company offer as a tentative agreement.

The $13.3 million NLRB judgment is more than half of the strike pay distributed to 1,000 strikers in 16 months. The UMWA provides only $350 a week, or $18,000 a year, for miners’ families to live on. The money grab goes to a company that made $146 million in profit for January to March this year and last year paid its CEO $5.7 million.

By United MIne Workers of America - Portside, August 6, 2022

NLRB demand for UMWA to pay Warrior Met Coal strike costs “outrageous,” threatens American workers’ right to strike.

The United Mine Workers of America today made it clear that it will vigorously challenge an outrageous assessment of damages made by the National Labor Relations Board Region 10 regarding the UMWA’s 16-month strike against Warrior Met Coal in Alabama.

“This is a slap in the face not just to the workers who are fighting for better jobs at Warrior Met Coal, but to every worker who stands up to their boss anywhere in America,” UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said. “There are charges for security, cameras, capital expenditures, buses for transporting scabs across picket lines, and the cost of lost production.

“What is the purpose of a strike if not to impact the operations of the employer, including production,” Roberts asked. “Is it now the policy of the federal government that unions be required to pay a company’s losses as a consequence of their members exercising their rights as working people? This is outrageous and effectively negates workers’ right to strike. It cannot stand.”

By staff - United Mine Workers Of America, August 3, 2022

The United Mine Workers of America today made it clear that it will vigorously challenge an outrageous assessment of damages made by the National Labor Relations Board Region 10 regarding the UMWA’s 16-month strike against Warrior Met Coal in Alabama.

“This is a slap in the face not just to the workers who are fighting for better jobs at Warrior Met Coal, but to every worker who stands up to their boss anywhere in America,” UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said. “There are charges for security, cameras, capital expenditures, buses for transporting scabs across picket lines, and the cost of lost production.

“What is the purpose of a strike if not to impact the operations of the employer, including production,” Roberts asked. “Is it now the policy of the federal government that unions be required to pay a company’s losses as a consequence of their members exercising their rights as working people? This is outrageous and effectively negates workers’ right to strike. It cannot stand.”

The union entered into a settlement agreement in June with NLRB Region 10 regarding charges the company had made about picket line activity in order to save striking members and families from days of hostile questioning by company lawyers. On July 22, the NLRB sent the union a detailed list of damages totaling $13.3 million dollars, more than 33 times the estimated amount NLRB lawyers had initially indicated would be assessed.

Warrior Met has reported millions of dollars in costs it has incurred over the course of the strike. “It appears that Warrior Met wants us to reimburse it for those costs, including costs it incurred before the strike even began,” Roberts said. “What’s extremely troubling here is that the NLRB appears to have taken up the company’s cause without a second thought.

“I want to be clear: Warrior Met Coal instigated this strike and has brutally extended it through its sustained unwillingness to reach a fair and reasonable agreement at the bargaining table,” Roberts said. “We have no intention of paying its costs for doing so. The right to strike in America must be preserved. We will fight this at every level, in every court. We will spend every penny of our resources rather than give in to something like this from the NLRB, Warrior Met or any other entity.”

By Binnu Jeyakumar - Pembina Institute, July 2022

By Crystal McCoy - Earth Island Institute, Summer 2022

Very often, the fossil fuel industry and its allies try to divide climate activists from blue-collar workers, as if our interest in a habitable planet where we can earn enough money to feed our families is not somehow shared. But from my own history, I know this is not the case.

I was born in Gillette, Wyoming, in one of the biggest coal mining regions in the world. I have spent my entire adult life working “out in the field,” so to speak. My very first industrial job was working for a company called Cotter in my hometown of Canon City, Colorado. During its heyday between 1958 until 1979, and intermittently since then, including when I worked there, it was a yellow cake uranium processing facility. It is now a Superfund site.

After that I moved to the scrap recycling industry, where I stayed for the majority of my adult life. There I worked on everything from decommissioned coal cars to your average everyday refrigerators. Over the years, I had to clean up many vehicles that came in to be shredded for scrap, which still had many contaminants inside. Working conditions were never favorable. My wages were always lower than those of most of my male counterparts. Sometimes I was not treated as an equal, despite being skilled in my field. And as a woman I also faced countless sexist remarks and gender discrimination on the job.

By Just Transition Fund - Grist, June 21, 2022

While working at a West Virginia mine, Gary Hairston dashed up a set of stairs to get out of the rain, but he only made it halfway. Doubled over and breathless, he didn’t yet know how completely his life had changed.

Hairston was eventually diagnosed with coal worker’s pneumoconiosis (CWP), commonly called black lung disease—a progressive and incurable condition caused by inhaling coal and silica dust, which causes scarring and impairs lung function.

Living with the impacts of black lung disease for the past twenty years—having to sit on the side-lines instead of playing basketball with his grandson—Hairston knows first-hand how devastating the disease can be. As the president of the National Black Lung Association, Hairston now works to help other miners secure benefits and healthcare from an increasingly vulnerable safety net.

The federal Black Lung Program was enacted in 1969, and since 1977, the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund has provided benefits when liable companies can’t be determined, or if a company goes bankrupt—an increasingly common occurrence in coal country. But in 2021, Congress failed to extend the excise tax on coal, which provides the fund’s sole source of income—jeopardizing the fund’s long term viability, and the support it offers for thousands of former miners afflicted with black lung disease.