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

DATE: SATURDAY, April 2, 1994                   TAG: 9404040176
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BUT, SIR, WE DIDN'T HIRE ANY MINERS

Imagine opening the mail one day and finding a bill for lifetime health benefits for people who worked for you only a few days many years ago. That's what happened to two Roanoke electrical contractors.

The Davis H. Elliott Co. and Richardson-Wayland Electric Corp. were told by the Social Security Administration they were liable under a 1992 federal law designed to preserve the health benefits of retired union coal miners. But neither of the electrical contractors was ever in the coal business.

"I never would have dreamed it would have applied to us," said Bill Elliott of Davis H. Elliott, who said he wasn't aware of the law until he received a notice in the mail. Unless it wins an appeal, Elliott faces $2,500 annual payments for each of three beneficiaries that have been assigned to it.

Richardson-Wayland was found responsible for one beneficiary but has already been relieved of liability after a successful appeal.

In 1992, as part of the federal energy bill, Congress passed and President Bush signed a measure sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D.-W.Va., designed to save the health-care benefits of retired miners in the 1950 and 1977 United Mine Workers health trust funds. The funds were threatened because 80,000 of their 110,000 beneficiaries had worked for companies no longer in business or no longer making payments into the health trusts for other reasons.

The legislation merged the two health trusts and provided for their continued solvency by, among other things, using a "reach-back" measure, tracing back to 1950 the company responsible for each retired miner's benefits and making it pay up.

Both Roanoke electrical companies may have made the "reach-back" list because they once were members of an association of companies that do contracting work at coal mines, speculated Agnis Chakravorty, a Roanoke lawyer representing both companies. "It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen," he said.

The Roanoke companies are not alone, says Marilyn O'Connell, the Social Security manager in charge of finding companies responsible for the retirement benefits. Of 700 companies identified under the reach-back provisions of the 1992 law, 181, assigned a total of 3,500 employees, have appealed their responsibility. So far 73 have won, she said.

The Social Security Administration warned Congress when it was considering the legislation that there would be problems identifying the responsible employers, Phil Gambino, an agency spokesman, said.

One of the employees for which Davis H. Elliott was assigned responsibility worked for the company one day in 1951 on a power-line job in Ohio, Elliott said. Another worked for the company for three months in the 1960s.

In response to a federal lawsuit filed by Elliott in November, a lawyer for the UMW trust fund has agreed to allow Elliott to pay the amount it has been assessed into an escrow account in Roanoke, pending the outcome of the company's appeal.