Coal miners rally for pension fix

Thousands of coal miners and their allies rallied outside the Capitol on Thursday in support of a bill to rescue their union’s troubled pension fund.

United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts spoke passionately and at length to members of his union, their families and labor-movement allies.

{mosads}He was joined by a dozen lawmakers supporting the bill, known as the Miners Protection Act, which would transfer money from the Abandoned Mine Lands fund into the UMWA’s multi-employer pension plan. The plan is due to start going insolvent later this year, threatening pension checks and the healthcare benefits that come from the same mine lands fund.

“We’ve got to pass this legislation by the end of this year. And if we don’t pass it by the end of the year, people will be without healthcare, and soon, pensions,” Roberts said at the event next to the Capitol reflecting pool. “So, brothers and sisters, we must have help from both sides of the aisle.”

Roberts and the lawmakers are focusing their efforts on the Senate, where some conservatives have objected that the bill would create a slippery slope into rescuing other troubled pension plans.

In particular, they’ve set their sights on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has not come out in support of the legislation and who decides which bills come up for a floor vote.

“We need the Republican senators and the Democratic senators to push the one person in this building … there’s one guy who doesn’t much like the UMWA, he happens to be the top Republican, the majority leader in the Senate. We need Republican senators and Democratic senators to put the heat on Mitch McConnell,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

“He’s the reason we haven’t had it yet, he’s the reason this isn’t law, he’s the reason we haven’t fixed this,” he said.

Nonetheless, lawmakers are optimistic that it will pass the Senate. They believe the Finance Committee will vote on the bill next week and that McConnell would then allow a floor vote.

To Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the bill upholds a promise that the federal government made in 1946 to take care of miners’ retirement and health benefits.

“We believe that when you make a promise, you don’t forsake the miners, the widows or their families. A promise made is a promise kept, and that’s what we’re going to see,” she said. “It’s a fairness issue.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said that the bill will pass because of the miners’s rally.

“It’s because of you, the support you’re giving us for this most important piece of legislation, that’s going to make it happen,” he said. “Without you here today, this doesn’t get done, I assure you.”

Manchin said all 46 Democrats in the Senate support the bill, along with about nine Republicans, so they need about five more supporters to reach a veto-proof supermajority.

Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) said the legislation is certain to pass the House if it passes the Senate.

“We’re going to be fine in the House,” he said. “But we’ve got to get past the opposition in the Senate.”

Updated 3:12 p.m.