Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 28, 1994 TAG: 9410280065
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The mine was the scene of a methane gas explosion in 1983 that killed seven miners, including the first woman to die in a Virginia mine. The entrance to the mine and its adjoining coal-cleaning plant also was the focus of large demonstrations by union coal miners during the 1989-90 strike against the Pittston Coal Group, Clinchfield's Lebanon-based parent company.
The closings, which were announced in certified letters that were mailed to affected employees Oct. 19, come on top of 450 other layoffs that have occurred at Pittston operations in Virginia over the past several months, according to company spokeswoman Susan Copeland. Another 191 McClure miners were among those earlier layoffs.
The loss of jobs due to the closings is felt especially in Dickenson County, where the unemployment rate now stands at 13.7 percent of the work force, among the highest in the state.
Gary Hale, who manages the Norton office of the Virginia Employment Commission, said the seven-county Virginia coalfield region has now lost 10,000 coal mining jobs since 1982. But economic development efforts to bring new industry to the area may soon start to pay off, Hale said.
The closings will occur over a two-week period beginning Dec. 30. Employees, the Dickenson County Board of Supervisors and the United Mine Workers union were notified under requirements of the federal worker-retraining law.
Closing of the two related facilities came as the result of declining prices for the metallurgical coal used in steel-making, Copeland said. The mine, which employed modern and efficient long-wall mining technology, was opened in 1979 and employed 350 miners at its peak.
Carl Zipper, associate director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research at Virginia Tech, said the demand for U.S. export of metallurgical coal has been depressed for at least two years and U.S. exporters have been under tremendous pricing pressure lately in the Far Eastern markets from Australian coal producers.
Copeland said Pittston's Virginia employment stood at 811 at the end of September, before the McClure closings were announced. That's down from 1,270 at the end of 1991. For a long time, Pittston was Virginia's top coal producer, but no longer holds that claim.
Pittston released its third-quarter earnings report Tuesday. The company's minerals group reported net income of $6.2 million in the third quarter compared with $5.9 million for the same period last year. For the first nine months, the minerals group recorded a net loss of $61.1 million as a result of asset writedowns due to shutdowns. The company earned $11.8 million during the first nine months last year.
by CNB