EE
R
F
Who’s On Our Side?
By Tom Chamberlain
Congratulation to all of you who
responded to the alarm, calling your
Congressional delegations to beat
back an attack on America’s safety
net. Make no mistake, Social Secu-
rity, Medicare, Medicaid, and other
programs to help the disabled and
poor were in the cross-hairs of the
December lame-duck session.
Thanks to you, our Democratic
Congressional members drew a line
in the sand and just said “no.”
Understand that special interests
were counting on Americans to be
off enjoying the holiday break.
They didn’t anticipate the rapid re-
sponse of America’s unions and our
allies. The AFL-CIO and its affili-
ates, independent unions, and oth-
ers worked together to implement a
strategy that motivated tens of thou-
sands of members to e-mail and
phone members of the U.S. Senate
and U.S. House. Local union lead-
ers were in Washington, D.C., the
Monday after Thanksgiving hold-
ing face-to-face meetings with our
elected leaders to remind them that
it is high time that the rich and pow-
erful pay their fair share and that
continuing a practice that cuts
spending at the expense of the mid-
dle class and poor is unacceptable.
The entire union movement has
successes to celebrate from our
massive efforts in the 2012 election.
Workers proved that people-power
trumps an onslaught of cash from
the 1 percent. But to turn around a
week later and marshal an army of
activists who were tired — and
looking forward to a holiday break,
reveals the true power of the Amer-
ican union movement and the dedi-
cation and perseverance of union
members, their families, and union
leaders.
I believe this is the template for
the future of our movement at the
national, state, and local levels.
It begins with union leaders be-
ing willing to develop strategies that
push our members to get involved
— including members who haven’t
always been active. Then it takes
early education to make sure our
co-workers and fellow union mem-
bers understand how these issues
affect our daily lives, and our econ-
omy as a whole. Then we have to
be ready for rapid mobilizations
that allow us to respond to issues as
they break — no matter how busy
we are or what time of year it is.
The December 2012 strategy
worked because we worked it. We
worked it in spite of election
burnout. We worked it in spite of a
much needed rest during the holi-
day break. We worked it because
Americans had too much to lose if
we didn’t.
I remember my first emergency
as a rookie firefighter. I was 22, and
a man close to my age had fallen
into a machine and his leg was
wrapped around an auger. It was
horrific. I remember thinking for a
split second: Who is coming to help
this guy. Immediately, it dawned on
me it was my responsibility. I had
to be ready to do my job.
The lesson of the election and
lame-duck Congress is the same
one I learned over three decades
ago: Help isn’t on the way, help is
you and I. It is our responsibility to
act, to respond to the emergency,
time and time again. We are the
only advocates for the middle class
and the working poor. We are up
against massive wealth and power
whose vision for America is the op-
posite of yours and mine.
Together we have proven that
massive mobilization of people
beats wealth and power. We must
continue to prove that the power to
win is on our side.
Tom Chamberlain is president of
the Oregon AFL-CIO.
Giant coal companies form spinoffs
to dump health and pension debts
MORGANTOWN, West Virginia
— Over the past decade, Peabody En-
ergy and Arch Coal, the nation’s largest
coal companies, have off-loaded large
amounts of retiree health care obliga-
tions to new companies that now face
bankruptcy, In These Times magazine
reported.
The United Mine Workers of Amer-
ica says the spin-offs were designed to
fail in order to clean the companies’
books of their retiree debts.
According to In These Times, in
2007, Peabody Energy spun off a new
company, Patriot Coal, which inherited
10 unionized mines in Kentucky and
West Virginia. Along with the mines,
Patriot took on $557 million in health
care obligations to UMWA retirees. In
2008, Patriot bought Magnum Coal
Company, which had been similarly
spun off from Arch Coal three years
earlier. From Magnum Coal Company,
Patriot inherited another $500 million
in obligations to retired miners.
“Oddly, for a 5-year-old company,
Patriot wound up with nearly three
times as many retirees as active em-
ployees, more than 90 percent of whom
never worked for the company. Over-
burdened by its debts, in July of 2012
Patriot declared bankruptcy,” In These
PAGE 6
Times reported.
In bankruptcy court, Patriot is seek-
ing to be released from its pension and
retirement obligations to some 10,000
retirees covering more than 20,000 ben-
eficiaries, which total more than $1.3
billion.
The union is suing Peabody and
Arch Coal, which has been operating
for nearly 130 years.
“You talk about a well-conceived
plan to shed themselves of promises and
commitments that they made over 60
years. This had to be done with a team
of lawyers that studied this forever in or-
der to make the value of Peabody go up,
and the liabilities that they carry on their
balance sheet when they are publicly
traded be reduced dramatically,” said
union President Cecil Roberts. “I have
never seen a situation like this, where
every single liability that a company
had ever committed to in any kind of
negotiations with the union in the past
60 years now somehow gets handed to
[a spin-off] company.”
The union has mobilized to put pub-
lic pressure on the bankruptcy court,
with rallies of 3,000 and more retirees
and Patriot miners attending meetings
in Evansville, Ind., and Charleston,
WV. The Charleston meeting was fol-
lowed by a 2,500-person demonstration
to persuade the judge to move the bank-
ruptcy trial from the New York court —
which is considered more friendly to
corporations in bankruptcy cases — to
a more neutral venue closer to where
the miners live. [Patriot Coal set up two
New York subsidiaries with no employ-
ees one month before filing for bank-
ruptcy, which allowed the company to
file in New York, In These Times re-
ported.]
After reading hundreds of letters
from coal miners, U.S. Bankruptcy
Judge Shelley C. Chapman agreed to
move the trial to St. Louis. She wrote
in her decision: “The corporate head-
quarters of Peabody are also in St.
Louis; this fact is significant in light of
the issues that have been raised by the
UMWA with respect to its spin-off of
Patriot and its responsibility to provide
promises cradle-to-grave health care
benefits to Patriot employees and re-
tirees who worked for Peabody prior to
the spin-off.”
Retired Patriot miner Bill Lemley
said if Patriot is successful in shedding
its obligations, “what’s to say that coal
companies and other companies won’t
get away with this? There will be a
domino effect across industries.”
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
BARGAIN COUNTER
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DEADLINE: Friday prior to publication
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Send to: Michael492@comcast.net
Mail to: NWLP, PO Box 13150, Portland OR 97213
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• 15-20 words • No commercial or business ads • 1 ad per issue
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Ads MUST include area code or they will not be published
A UTOMOTIVE
2007 Prowler, 30’, large slide, 2 doors, rear
bedroom, like new, non-smoker, $14,000. 971-
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’99 Honda accord, 2 dr, sunroof, ac, power,
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Border collie collectibles by Bradford Mint,
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like new saddle, 18" Seat western Saddle com-
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Poker tournament
for Doernbecher
slated March 16
The second annual Texas Hold’em
tournament for Doernbecher Children’s
Hospital is slated for Saturday, March
16, at the Sheet Metal Workers Local
16 hall in Northeast Portland.
The event is sponsored by Unions
for Kids, which also holds the annual
motorcycle poker run.
Buy-in to the card game is $50. Top
winners will receive Visa gift cards.
The amount of each card will be deter-
mined by the number of card players,
but minimums have been set at $1,000
for first place, $500 for second place,
and $250 for third place.
Drawings for a flat screen television
and other items also will take place at
the poker tournament.
For more information or to register,
contact Emmy Keever at 503-254-0123
or e-mail her at ekeever@sheetmetal-
16.org.
Low Prices!
Mon-Fri 9-6, Sat 9:30-5:30, Sun 12-6
JANUARY 18, 2013