UNION MEMBERS PROTESTING COAL COMPANY’S PLANS

As Westmoreland Coal Co. tries to emerge from bankruptcy, union members from one of its mines are picketing at the company’s headquarters in Englewood to protest efforts to cut retirees’ health insurance and pensions.

Sarah Myers, an employee at Westmoreland’s mine in Kemmerer in southwest Wyoming, said Thursday the union wants to keep workers’ concerns front and center as the bankruptcy case proceeds.

“We’re just trying to get our voice out there. We’re just trying to represent ourselves,” Myers said.

Myers wasn’t in Englewood on Thursday, but she said miners from Kemmerer are taking turns picketing Westmoreland’s headquarters each week, Monday through Friday.

The company didn’t return a request for a comment Thursday afternoon.

Colorado-based Westmoreland, the country’s sixth-largest coalmining business with 19 mines in six states and Canada, announced in October that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It entered into a restructuring agreement with lenders in the face of $1.4 billion in debt.

Westmoreland employs nearly 3,000 people across its operations, which include mines in Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, and several subsidiaries. It has no mines in Colorado.

An Oct. 23 letter obtained by The Denver Post details Westmoreland’s proposed changes to the company’s agreements with the United Mine Workers of America. The proposals include freezing retirees’ pensions and eliminating their medical benefits.

The company has also proposed abolishing union contracts if the mines are sold. Westmoreland has said in court filings that potential buyers of its operations won’t make offers if it means taking on the pension and medical costs.

Richard Morgan, the UMWA’s district representative, said about 2,500 retirees, including union members in Trinidad, Raton, N.M., and Beulah, N.D., would be affected by the company’s proposals. As part of the bankruptcy proceedings, Westmoreland and the union are supposed to renegotiate the contracts, with talks scheduled to wrap up Feb. 13.

“The retirees’ medical benefits are the main sticking point,” Morgan said.

Morgan said layoffs at the Kemmerer mine, which employs nearly 300 people, are anticipated sometime in the next three or four months because of losses of contracts. — Judith Kohler, The Denver Post