UMW ZEROS IN ON RETIREE HEALTH CARE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 8, 1992                   TAG: 9201080096
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, W.VA.                                LENGTH: Medium
UMW ZEROS IN ON RETIREE HEALTH CARE
The coal industry should reiterate a promise made in 1946 that guaranteed health benefits to retired miners, a spokesman for organized coal operators said Tuesday.
The 1946 deal, drafted by the U.S. government and the United Mine Workers union, was ratified by the coal industry in 1950, said Joseph Brennan, president of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association.
"In return, the UMW entered into a deal with the employers which permitted the mechanization of the mines, a process that was devastating in terms of job loss but which saved the industry," Brennan said at a meeting of UMW activists from Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
"The price paid by the miners was high. The industry that we see today, whether union or union-free, has been shaped by that arrangement," he said.
The trust funds that finance the promised health care for 120,000 retirees are near financial collapse, however, with deficits amounting to more than $100 million. The miners' union and the BCOA have agreed on a bailout proposal, but the measure requires approval by Congress.
Tuesday's meeting was called to devise strategies for winning passage of a measure introduced in Congress by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. The bill is opposed by several non-union coal operators.
Rockefeller told the group that preserving health care for retired miners is a first step in resolving health care problems for the entire nation.
"We won't make progress in the future if we can't defend what we did in the past . . . if we can't keep universal access to health care for those to whom it was promised years ago," Rockefeller said.
Rockefeller said government intervention in 1946 means the proper solution must involve the government now.
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., is a co-sponsor of the measure that would transfer surplus money from a related pension fund to eliminate the current deficit, require coal companies to take responsibility for their own retirees and tax all coal companies 75 cents an hour to pay for benefits for retirees whose last employer has gone out of business.
UMW President Richard Trumka said the issue of health care was the driving force behind the union's bitter 1989-90 strike against Pittston Coal Group. At the start of the dispute, Pittston had cut off medical benefits to 1,500 UMW retirees and widows.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB