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While Patriot Coal Corp. has cut wages and benefits for thousands of active coal miners little more than a month after receiving court approval, the company said that the terms implemented for United Mine Workers of America members, which went into effect on Monday, are "significantly improved" from what the court authorized as a result of continuing talks with the union, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported today. The coal producer also said that "substantial progress" has been made in negotiations with the union concerning retiree health care benefits, and that current health coverage is being extended for an additional two months for those retirees while talks continue. It's been almost a year since Creve Coeur, Mo.-based Patriot filed for chapter 11 protection, citing a deep downturn in coal markets and legacy retiree health care liabilities among the key reasons for its struggles.

Texas hedge fund billionaire John Arnold is taking his campaign to reform America's public pension systems to California, Reuters reported yesterday. Arnold, the founder of Houston-based hedge fund Centaurus Advisors and a former trader at Enron, the defunct energy company, is looking to fund groups supporting ballot initiatives that would scale back what critics regard as overly lavish public employee pension deals. Unfunded pension liabilities for U.S. states have risen to a total of more than $1 trillion, according to the latest analysis from the nonpartisan Pew Charitable Trust. The issue is especially acute in California, where public employee pensions have exceptionally strong legal protections even as many local governments and state agencies struggle with chronic budget deficits. Two California cities, Stockton and San Bernardino, have filed for bankruptcy protection in part because of soaring pension costs.

Top executives of a bankrupt coal producer and the nation's biggest miners' union are trading public jabs over bargaining meant to stave off a strike against a company given a court's go-ahead to slash health care and pension benefits to thousands of workers and retirees, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The public feuding resurfaced on Wednesday, when the United Mine Workers of America accused Patriot Coal Corp. of walking out of negotiations meant to mitigate the bankruptcy judge's May 29 decision allowing Patriot to impose wage and benefit cuts by abandoning its collective-bargaining agreements. Patriot's chief executive Ben Hatfield fired back hours later, denying the company broke off talks it noted it was under no legal obligation to continue. Hatfield said the company had simply recessed to mull financial implications of the union's demands that Patriot roll back most of the cost relief the bankruptcy judge approved.

Bankruptcy Judge Kathy Surratt-States ruled yesterday that Patriot Coal Corp. can reject collective bargaining agreements, cease pension contributions and convert retiree health care to an outside fund as part of its plan to save $150 million a year in labor costs, Reuters reported yesterday. "There is likely some responsibility to be absorbed for demanding benefits that the employer cannot realistically fund in perpetuity," Judge Surratt-States wrote her opinion. The United Mine Workers of America, which represents 1,700 current Patriot workers and 13,000 retirees and their relatives, vowed to appeal the ruling. The union has planned a public rally for June 4 in Henderson, Kentucky. Patriot's current proposal would cease pension contributions and convert health care to a voluntary employees' beneficiary association (VEBA) funded by $15 million in up-front cash and $300 million in profit-sharing contributions. The union would receive a 35 percent equity stake in post-bankruptcy Patriot, which it could sell to help fund the VEBA. The company's proposal would also reduce wages and decrease paid time-off.

One Eastman Kodak Co. shareholder is fighting the company's chapter 11 reorganization plan that would see the company’s stock effectively wiped out, the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle reported on Saturday. In a letter filed in bankruptcy court last week, Florida shareholder and attorney Matthew Glassman argues that shareholders need their own official standing in Kodak’s chapter 11 case and that Kodak’s reorganization plan “is a blatant attempt to rob both the shareholders and unsecured debt and bond holders of money and shares that are rightfully theirs.” Kodak already is facing a possible challenge to its bankruptcy emergence plans from a cadre of retirees looking to get official standing in Kodak’s bankruptcy. The bankruptcy court has scheduled a hearing for June 20 on a motion asking for creation of an official committee to represent the interests of retirees who had been receiving pension payments from a pair of unfunded retirement programs Kodak axed when it filed for bankruptcy in January 2012.

A lawyer for the United Mine Workers of America on Friday told a bankruptcy judge that it would be forced to strike if Patriot Coal Corp. succeeds in voiding its contract with the union, Reuters reported on Friday. Attorney Fred Perillo said that the union would do everything in its power to reach a consensual agreement with Patriot, which is seeking to impose $150 million a year in labor cuts. But if Bankruptcy Judge Kathy Surratt-States approves the proposal, which would end pension contributions, alter health care and lower pay rates, Perillo said a strike will follow.

The Illinois House of Representatives in a 62 to 51 vote yesterday passed a comprehensive bill aimed at addressing the nation's most underfunded state pension plan, a major step after weeks of legislative maneuvering had made pensions the dominant political issue in the financially strapped state, Reuters reported yesterday. The bill, introduced only two days ago by Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, now goes to the state Senate. That chamber's president is preparing a competing plan that is viewed as being more favorable to the state's public-employee labor unions. The Madigan bill, which is designed to eliminate a $96.8 billion funding shortfall over 30 years, relies on changes to retirement benefits that unions say are a violation of the state’s constitution. Union leaders have said that they will challenge the measure in court if it becomes law, and Madigan acknowledged during floor debate yesterday that implementation likely would not move forward until courts rule on the constitutional issue.

Patriot Coal Corp.'s CEO Ben Hatfield told a court that the bankrupt company's unionized workers would benefit if Patriot were allowed to implement $150 million a year in proposed cuts, Reuters reported yesterday. Hatfield said at a bankruptcy court hearing yesterday that the cuts are the only way to avoid a liquidation that would cost 1,700 miners their jobs. Hatfield testified on Patriot's proposed reductions, which the United Mine Workers of America union has lambasted as "nowhere near" fair. The plan would end pension contributions and create a separate entity to fund health care benefits, affecting Patriot's current workers and about 13,000 retirees and their families.

Patriot Coal Corp. yesterday told a judge it would liquidate if not allowed to make drastic cuts to employee pension and health care benefits, as coal miners protested on the first day of a week-long court hearing, Reuters reported yesterday. Patriot, which filed for bankruptcy in July, told a bankruptcy court that it planned to cut $150 million in annual labor costs by ceasing pension contributions and converting healthcare to an outside fund. The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) has condemned the proposals as "nowhere near" fair, but a Patriot lawyer said that it is a necessary step for the company to survive.

The union whose nationwide strike sparked Hostess Brands Inc.'s decision to liquidate in bankruptcy said that its workers are "inextricably linked" to the future of snacks such as Twinkies and Ho Hos and hinted that the law is on its side when it comes to hiring practices, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. David Durkee, the president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Union, said his workers are "eager and willing" to return to the four plants that Apollo Global Management LLC and Metropoulos & Co .—the private-equity firms that bought most of Hostess's cake business—are relaunching over the next eight to 10 weeks.