Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 17, 1992 TAG: 9203170282
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABINGDON LENGTH: Medium
William Poff of Roanoke, representing the BCOA, told U.S. District Judge Glen Williams that an order to pay more would kill the association by the time its current contract with the United Mine Workers union expires next February.
The association, which conducts labor-contract bargaining for some of the nation's largest coal companies, currently has 13 members, down from about 30 in 1988 and 150 in 1984, the years the last two contracts with the union were negotiated.
As contribution rates into the health funds have gone up, membership in the association has gone down, Poff said. The death of the association would mean the end of coordinated bargaining within the coal industry, he said.
Poff said Williams was being asked in the "emotionalism of the moment" to provide a short-term solution that in the long run would lead to chaos and disaster.
"If I don't do it," Williams told Poff, "the chaos of people without health benefits is a very sad situation."
There are 7,000 beneficiaries of the health funds in Virginia, according to testimony Monday.
Williams is hearing a request, brought on behalf of some as-yet unnamed retired miners, to enjoin the 1950 and 1974 UMWA Benefits Trusts from suspending health-care benefits in mid-April or even sending notice to beneficiaries that they plan to do that. The unnamed retirees have also asked Williams to order the operators association to increase its payments to the funds.
Some retirees have threatened to set up picket lines at union mines, which union miners would be expected to honor.
According to testimony Monday from William Miller of Alexandria, one of the funds' five trustees, the 1950 fund is currently running a $120 million deficit and the 1974 fund a deficit of $20 million.
"What it means . . . is we are broke," Miller said.
Russell Crosby, the funds research director, testified that it would be necessary to increase contributions into the 1950 fund from $2.17 to $5.03 per employee-hour worked and contributions to the 1974 fund from 33 cents to 91 cents to keep them solvent during the course of the current UMW contract. The funds are established under terms of the contract.
The hearing resumes today. Arguments during the hearing Monday centered on the jurisdiction of Williams' court in the case.
The operators association, which was added as defendant in the case by Williams, asked that the association either be dismissed as a defendant or that the lawsuit be transferred to a federal court in Washington, D.C., where a similar suit is set for trial June 22.
The two plaintiffs in the case, the retirees and the UMW, and the other defendant, the trust funds, argued that Williams does have jurisdiction. The trust funds' position on that prompted Poff to ask Williams for a reshuffling of the parties in the suit, each of which seemed to oppose the others at some time during the arguments.
Poff argued that the BCOA should be dismissed as a defendant because Williams' court does not have jurisdiction over the BCOA. The association has no Virginia offices and no control of the health funds, nor is it legally responsible for the retirees, Poff said.
Because the issues in the case are already before a federal court in Washington, the case should be transferred there as a matter of judicial courtesy, Poff said.
"This would be an unprecedented usurpation on another court's jurisdiction," he said.
Referring to West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller's current legislation before Congress to rescue the trust funds, Poff told Williams that his court was being used "as a political lever."
Poff warned Williams that by granting the injunction he could "make a substantial contribution to the defeat of [Rockefeller's] bill."
Opponents to the bill have said that if the BCOA would increase its contributions to the trust funds the legislation would be unnecessary.
Poff and UMW attorney Robert Stropp maintained in court that non-union coal operators who oppose the Rockefeller bill are the real force behind the lawsuit brought by the unnamed retirees.
But Stropp said the UMW, which is a co-plaintiff in the suit with the retirees, is willing to go into any venue to make sure the health benefits continue.
Although the UMW and operators association are on opposite sides in the lawsuit, they both support the Rockefeller bill.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.