By Ramona du Houx

December 22, 2021

The United Mine Workers of America, on December 20, told the West Virginia senator to reconsider his position on the legislation that would reshape the American energy landscape. The UMWA wants a fair shake because of the benefits BBB contains.

“We urge Senator Manchin to revisit his opposition to this legislation and work with his colleagues to pass something that will help keep coal miners working, and have a meaningful impact on our members, their families, and their communities,” UMWA President Cecil Roberts wrote in his statement.

The UMWA statement clearly shows that coal workers want to be at the table of the energy transition. Roberts noted BBB had provisions to “provide tax incentives to encourage manufacturers to build facilities in the coalfields that would employ thousands of coal miners who have lost their jobs. We support that and are ready to help supply those plants with a trained, professional workforce.”

BBB includes language that would fine employers for union-busting, which UMWA supports.

Roberts also highlighted the benefits for miners suffering from the deadly black lung, a disease is prevalent for thousands of miners across Appalachia. An increasing number of miners are dying from breathing in coal dust. The fees coal companies have paid into the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund are set to end this year. The fund provided nearly $41 million to black lung sufferers in West Virginia in 2020. BBB would’ve extended them in 2025.

According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), after the passage of the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act in 1969, cases of black-lung had dropped by about 90 percent. But by 1995, the downward trend stopped, and since then the number of black-lung cases has at least doubled.

As of 2018, one in five veteran coal miners in Central Appalachia now has black lung disease.

Manchin is a top campaign recipient of money from the coal, mining, oil and gas extraction profits.

Here’s the full UMWV December 20, 2021 statement:

TRIANGLE, VA.

United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President Cecil E. Roberts issued the following statement today:

“The United Mine Workers and Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have a long and friendly relationship. We remain grateful for his hard work to preserve the pensions and health care of our retirees across the nation, including thousands in West Virginia. He has been at our side as we have worked to preserve coal miners’ jobs in a changing energy marketplace, and we appreciate that very much.

“The Build Back Better (BBB) legislation includes several items that we believe are important for our members and their communities – some of which are part of the UMWA’s Principles for Energy Transition we laid out last spring.

“The bill includes language that would extend the current fee paid by coal companies to fund benefits received by victims of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, or Black Lung. But now that fee will be cut in half, further shifting the burden of paying these benefits away from the coal companies and on to taxpayers.

“The bill includes language that will provide tax incentives to encourage manufacturers to build facilities in the coalfields that would employ thousands of coal miners who have lost their jobs. We support that and are ready to help supply those plants with a trained, professional workforce. But now the potential for those jobs is significantly threatened.

“The bill includes language that would, for the first time, financially penalize outlaw employers that deny workers their rights to form a union on the job. This language is critical to any long-term ability to restore the right to organize in America in the face of ramped-up union-busting by employers. But now there is no path forward for millions of workers to exercise their rights at work.

“For those and other reasons, we are disappointed that the bill will not pass. We urge Senator Manchin to revisit his opposition to this legislation and work with his colleagues to pass something that will help keep coal miners working, and have a meaningful impact on our members, their families, and their communities.

“I also want to reiterate our support for the passage of voting rights legislation as soon as possible, and strongly encourage Senator Manchin and every other Senator to be prepared to do whatever it takes to accomplish that. Anti-democracy legislators and their allies are working every day to roll back the right to vote in America. Failure by the Senate to stand up to that is unacceptable and a dereliction of their duty to the Constitution.”