Ten people were arrested yesterday at a protest outside the St. Louis headquarters of Peabody Energy, one of the companies the union accuses of orchestrating business deals that bankrupted Patriot Coal, the Associated Press reported yesterday. This was the second time in two weeks that the United Mine Workers of America organized a huge protest to draw attention to the possible loss of pension and health care benefits for about 20,000 retired miners and dependents. The union is suing Peabody and Arch Coal in West Virginia, claiming they set Patriot up to fail so it would have to shed the pension and health care benefits. After the spinoff, Patriot acquired mines that Arch Coal spun off into Magnum Coal. Patriot now argues the legacy costs it inherited are "unsustainable." The lawsuit argues Arch and Peabody are still responsible for those benefits under the federal Employee Retirement and Income Securities Act. The UMWA contends that the companies knew that the cyclical nature of the industry would inevitably lead to Patriot’s inability to pay for those liabilities.
