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The Harlan County, Ky., coal miners who drew national attention during a two-month blockade of a coal train to demand back wages from bankrupt coal operator Blackjewel ended their protest yesterday, the Louisville Courier Journal reported. They still haven't gotten paid: Negotiations between Blackjewel, creditors and the miners continue and will go to court-supervised mediation if no deal is reached by Oct. 1, said their attorney, Ned Pillersdorf. But Harlan County Judge-Executive Dan Mosley said that the remaining miners who were still protesting had found work and had to leave the tracks and its collection of tents, supplies and protest signs. At the request of the U.S. Department of Labor, a judge previously ordered the coal train worth more than $1 million to remain in place. But the attention created by the protest in one of America’s poorest and most coal-dependent counties had a far-reaching impact that extends well beyond the bounced paychecks that sparked it. It spotlighted Kentucky's failure to enforce coal payroll bond regulations, renewed attention to black lung disability trust fund shortfalls, drew an additional $3.7 million for Appalachian job retraining and underscored how workers often lose out as coal bankruptcies keep growing. The bankruptcy of the nation's sixth-largest coal producer came without warning, leaving 1,700 jobless in Wyoming, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky, including more than a quarter of miners in Kentucky's Harlan County.

Two former media executives have agreed to pay more than $7.8 million from insurance policies to end two lawsuits brought on by federal pension officials and unsecured creditors over their alleged mishandling of retirement money of Freedom Communications Inc., the company that once owned California’s Orange County Register, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Bankruptcy Judge Mark S. Wallace has signed off on a deal between pension officials, creditors and Freedom Communications’ former chief executive Aaron B. Kushner and former president Eric J. Spitz. The settlement resolves the claims made by the committee representing Freedom Communications’ unsecured creditors—among them the newspaper’s former staffers—and its largest unsecured creditor, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which serves as a federal safety net for retirement savings. The settlement pact ends extensive negotiations that began with mediation in December 2017 and spanned about 17 months. Money for the settlement isn’t actually coming out of the pockets of the former executives. Rather, insurers Chubb Ltd. and Hiscox Insurance Co. are paying the total amount earmarked for the committee and the PBGC.

The United Auto Workers strike at General Motors Co. is starting to take a toll on businesses throughout Michigan, creating a growing threat to the state’s already-slowing economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Michigan’s economy faces the greatest exposure from a prolonged strike, because it has about 15 GM manufacturing facilities employing tens of thousands of workers, more than any other state. Lost earnings to workers will result in lower sales-tax and income-tax revenues for the state, and some local businesses near idled GM plants are already reporting lost sales. Michigan relies far more on the automotive industry for wage and salary income than the U.S. as a whole. The sector accounts for 7 percent of such income, compared with less than 2 percent nationally, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

A United Auto Workers strike at General Motors Co. appeared headed into its ninth day, in a work stoppage that has led to temporary layoffs for thousands of workers at GM facilities in the U.S. and Canada who aren’t involved in the walkout, the Wall Street Journal reported. The strike is already the longest nationwide walkout at GM since 1970, sending some 46,000 full-time factory workers to picket lines and halting work at more than 30 of the auto maker’s U.S. plants. The UAW is pushing for better new-hire pay, fewer temp workers and the preservation of existing health-care plans, among other issues. Union and company bargainers met yesterday with talks likely to continue today as the two sides work to resolve key differences. As the strike persists for a second week, GM has furloughed more than 1,200 employees at engine plants in Ohio and Canada. These temporary layoffs add to the 2,000 workers at GM’s assembly plant in Oshawa, Canada, who were furloughed because of the strike last week. The walkout is also affecting a web of auto-parts suppliers in the U.S. that produce components for the company’s cars and trucks.

The United Automobile Workers union went on strike at General Motors, sending nearly 50,000 members at factories across the Midwest and South to picket lines on Monday morning, the New York Times reported. With the two sides far apart, U.A.W. regional leaders in Detroit voted unanimously yesterday to authorize the strike, the union’s first such walkout since 2007. It began at midnight, after the union’s current bargaining agreement expired on Saturday. The U.A.W. is pushing G.M. to improve wages, reopen idled plants, add jobs at others and close or narrow the difference between pay rates for new hires and veteran workers. G.M. wants employees to pay a greater portion of their health care costs, and to increase work-force productivity and flexibility in factories. Although the company has been earning substantial profits in North America — and it made $8.1 billion globally last year — it has idled three plants in the United States as car sales slide and overall demand for vehicles weakens.

California trucking companies that haul everything from summer strawberries to cars and Christmas toys say they are under threat from a bill that could turn so-called gig workers into employees, Reuters reported. California state senators late on Tuesday passed AB5, proposed legislation that would set tougher standards for determining which workers can be properly classified as independent contractors. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has signaled support for the measure, which would take effect on Jan. 1. The legislation threatens to upend a swath of California businesses that rely on freelance drivers. While the spotlight has been on ride-sharing companies Uber Technologies Inc (UBER.N) and Lyft Inc (LYFT.O), the trucking industry that underpins the U.S. agriculture, retail and industrial sectors is also heavily exposed. “It’s going to hit all trucking firms small and large,” said Joseph Rajkovacz, director of governmental affairs for the Western States Trucking Association. Experts say California’s mostly small 137,000 trucking firms are vulnerable to upheaval wrought by AB5.

Philadelphia Energy Solutions paid out about $4.6 million in retention bonuses to eight key executives after a devastating June fire closed the giant Schuylkill River refinery complex, but before the company declared bankruptcy, court records show, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Most of the payments were made on July 5, while PES was in the process of closing the East Coast’s largest refinery, according to a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. At the time, the refinery had announced plans to permanently shut the fuel complex and lay off most of its 1,100 employees without severance pay or health insurance coverage. The payments were disclosed in financial documents filed on Friday with the court. “Key employee retention bonuses are not that uncommon in bankruptcy, but it is uncommon to pay them before bankruptcy knowing that you’re going to go into bankruptcy," said Prof. Jonathan Lipson of Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. Such bonuses might be challenged by a committee of unsecured creditors, or by a bankruptcy trustee if one is appointed. The retention bonuses paid by PES were not included in a formal plan submitted to the court, but listed without comment in a 204-page financial report submitted to the court.

Sears is laying off about 250 employees at its Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based headquarters, but there are “no current plans to close the entire facility,” the retailer said in a notice filed with the state, the Chicago Tribune reported. The retailer, which emerged from bankruptcy in February, sent a letter to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity that said it is implementing a permanent workforce reduction over a 14-day period, beginning Oct. 28. The terminated employees are not represented by a union, the company said in the Aug. 29 letter to the state. Sears had 4,411 employees in Hoffman Estates and its Loop satellite office as of January 2017, according to state filings. In June 2017, Sears told the Chicago Tribune that it had fallen short of the 4,250 employees needed to remain eligible for state tax credits. Since then, Sears has announced the elimination of more than 1,100 jobs, mostly in Hoffman Estates. The company said it had 68,000 total employees, including 32,000 full-time workers, when it filed for bankruptcy last fall.

Most of a highly toxic chemical stored at a fire-damaged Philadelphia oil refinery has been rendered inert, clearing the way for closer inspections of the site following a June blaze that led to the plant’s closure, Reuters reported. About 340,000 pounds of hydrofluoric acid (HF) stored at Philadelphia Energy Solutions’ refinery was chemically neutralized, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel said. HF can burn the skin and form a potentially deadly fog at room temperature. The process “substantially reduces the risk to the community,” Thiel said, noting some HF acid still remained at the site. Initial phases of the fire probes, including data gathering, have largely been completed, Thiel said. HF is used by more than one-third of U.S. refineries in the alkylation process to make high-octane gasoline. PES’s alkylation unit was destroyed in a fire and series of blasts on June 21 just minutes after the chemical was dumped into a safety vessel. The HF in that vessel has been neutralized, Thiel said. Since the fire, PES has closed the refinery complex, which was the largest and oldest on the East Coast, and filed for chapter 11 protection. Most of the roughly 1,100 PES workers have been laid off without health benefits, including 640 union employees. PES on Thursday asked the bankruptcy judge to hire investigations and crisis management attorneys to advise the company on the seven federal, state and local investigations into the cause of the June blasts, court documents show.