Question

[MikMo]

Let me tell you one of the ways those scumbags screwed me. I had just made it to the Quality Assurance team in April and my mother's health took a turn for the worse. We don't have any other family around that could help her out, so it all fell on me. I had to leave one night because she had been taken to the ER and I told one of the managers that due to her health, it may be an ongoing thing. He said no problem...that wouldn't count against me. Well, I ended up having to leave at least once a week like that to either take her to the ER or meet the ambulance there. In about 2 or 3 months, to my suprise, my manager comes and tells me I have 9 points! You can't trust any of those slithering snakes that call themselves managers up there.

[PVVikeFan]

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Like NI Industries in Duffield, stayed till the group got near the 10th year mark. And Norris before them. Work till I die, it is easy for me [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] as I'm crazy you see. And I can furnish references. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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A mind, such as it it, is a terrible thing to waste. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[TheBeast]

Got a couple of good pm's from CoeburnCane on the whole union issue I brought up........



don't know about industry-wide, but I do know that out of all of Alpha's companies in WV, PA, KY, and VA (about 10 separate entities between Paramont, Callaway, Maxxim, Dickenson-Russell, Enterprise, Brooks Run, Amfire, Black Dog, and Alpha Services), that Dickenson-Russell coal company is the only mining company we have that has any union mines whatsoever, and they're maybe 30, 40 percent unionized. There used to be a few union men in our WV operations, but those dissolved on their own after we came in.

Post UMWA in the 80's, the unions had a quick increase, then a decline as more coal companies started working more on employee relations and giving more concessions in terms of salary & health care. A few years up the road, the price of coal jumped up again to high levels compared to what they were in the 90's. After that is when your larger regional companies on the eastern seaboard like Teco, ICG, Massey, and now Alpha started getting big and buying up all of the smaller mines to either A) mine them with as many men as they could throw at it to get the coal out and get it sold, especially in today's higher price coal market...OR...B) buy the small peanuts mines, do reclamation on the land, and gain reimbursements from the state agencies that in turn went right back into the mines that were worth running full bore.

With the advances in human resource management in the industry today, and with the approach to mining coal that changed from the 80's up to today, it's just not a very union-friendly environment in coal.


Yeah--the trick about unions is that they say "the union is here for the employees!", but they're really there for the union. As long as the employees believe they're a part of the union and it's success, then they'll be duped into going along with whatever the union decides, instead of allowing the individual to deal with HR and the company themselves on an employer/employee basis.

You ever notice, especially around mines, that the ones who are proudest about the union and shout it from the rooftops that they're a "union man", are most of the time the ones who don't get the full benefits of the union, or haven't been in it for too long?

Collective bargaining as a mine unit is one thing--unionizing and trying to bully a company you work for into doing something you want is a whole different issue. Thank God the unions at DR are really just superficial and holdovers from the UMWA days that don't have much power.

The guys that say this are still riding the coats of the grandfathers that brought about the law changes that make the laws that still govern the mines today. When the UMWA came to power, they were dumping the bodies of the dead on the steps of the widows along with the eviction notice. The wonderful companies you speak of still try to get by without furnishing healthcare for the old folks, don't they? Our country has plenty of cash for a war but no money to help our older folks get health care? What about younger folks that won't work? They pay for them, why screw someone that has worked all their life, and if you think Massey is a good company all it says is you never worked for them. They can't get electricians and they offer a 25,000 cash bonus if you will stay with them for 3 years. Figure that one out. The decline of the union was led by a group of folks that caused trouble, a few younger ones that didn't want to work. They economy didn't help and the fact that the coal we compete with is mined at slave labor cost isn't good . The only thing holding this together right now is the fact that some coal from overseas won't cut the emissions standards, and the larger companies have choked the supply down. It won't last , not at this price. Kentucky is looking at importing workers from other countries, since the coal mines can't be out-sourced. Dumb hillbillys are making decent money on a high school education, can't have that. My biggest achievement as part of the UMWA , even if the strike cost us our jobs, was keeping DR/Pittston from cutting out the retiree healthcare. What about you, do you work in a business or are you paid by tax dollars?

[CoeburnCane]

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The guys that say this are still riding the coats of the grandfathers that brought about the law changes that make the laws that still govern the mines today. When the UMWA came to power, they were dumping the bodies of the dead on the steps of the widows along with the eviction notice. The wonderful companies you speak of still try to get by without furnishing healthcare for the old folks, don't they? Our country has plenty of cash for a war but no money to help our older folks get health care? What about younger folks that won't work? They pay for them, why screw someone that has worked all their life, and if you think Massey is a good company all it says is you never worked for them. They can't get electricians and they offer a 25,000 cash bonus if you will stay with them for 3 years. Figure that one out. The decline of the union was led by a group of folks that caused trouble, a few younger ones that didn't want to work. They economy didn't help and the fact that the coal we compete with is mined at slave labor cost isn't good . The only thing holding this together right now is the fact that some coal from overseas won't cut the emissions standards, and the larger companies have choked the supply down. It won't last , not at this price. Kentucky is looking at importing workers from other countries, since the coal mines can't be out-sourced. Dumb hillbillys are making decent money on a high school education, can't have that. My biggest achievement as part of the UMWA , even if the strike cost us our jobs, was keeping DR/Pittston from cutting out the retiree healthcare. What about you, do you work in a business or are you paid by tax dollars?

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I work in a business. I'm not a miner, but I'm a part of the operations personnel.

"The wonderful companies you speak of still try to get by without furnishing healthcare for the old folks, don't they?"---NOT at all the case, at least for Alpha anyways. I personally used to keep up with the inordinate amount of cost per month we would spend on Retiree Medical benefits (which is governed by FAS 106, federal accounting law, that it HAS to be done). We pay retiree medical expenses out all the time, so we've tried to take care of those who have put in their time with the old Coastal, Pittston, Paramont, and other properties that are now under Alpha's umbrella. for you to state otherwise is just throwing shizzle against the wall, hoping some will eventually stick to form a Picasso masterpiece. It's written in the law that we have to do it. We have internal and external auditors all over our arse since we've become a public company MAKING SURE that we do it. Now, how are we going to circumvent that, since you know all about our retiree medical practices???

As for importing foreign workers from other countries instead of "dumb hillbillies with a high-school education" (your words, not mine--not ever), I can tell you for certain, there are some companies that are desparate in KY that will probably do that. Alpha and Enterprise is not one of them. If there's anything I know for absolute certain when it comes to our employment practices--it's that. The people in the respective areas of our companies will mine the coal if they are qualified to do so and have all of their certifications needed to be a miner.

And once again--sorry to say that your best achievement as a member of the UMWA amounts to NOTHING now. By corporate accounting laws as applied to public companies under FAS 106, we HAVE to pay retiree medical benefits. Any work that you did to "save the retiree medical benefits" is now law anyways, so it doesn't really mean much.

BTW--one bit of #'s that I messed up when talking to The Beast--it's not just 30-40% of DR workers that are still unionized, it's closer to 60%. But yet & still, it's not really a very powerful union--it's those holding on to saying "I'm union" just because that's what they've always been.

Collective bargaining is needed in the workplace by unionized personnel...bad strong-handed techniques are not needed by overzealous unionized personnel that view themselves as separate from the company. There's a thin line there.

How about signing me up with DR then (my underground electricians card is from 79, 27 years exp [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]), and if you don't care line us up on just Paramont and Coastal's healthcare, for the retirees , just them before it became law, how much it covered. Not the burden that came with what was union, that they bought or merged with, and HAS to be PAID because it was so unjust that it had a LAW passed against the practice. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] "We have internal and external auditors all over our arse since we've become a public company MAKING SURE that we do it. Now, how are we going to circumvent that, since you know all about our retiree medical practices???" If they weren't trying to get out of this , why do you think the auditors would be there? Not you personally, but perhaps you don't have the information I did at one point. And Massey and ICG both have worse names than Coastal/Paramont/DR in the mining work place. [ QUOTE ]
Collective bargaining is needed in the workplace by unionized personnel...bad strong-handed techniques are not needed by overzealous unionized personnel that view themselves as separate from the company. There's a thin line there.

[/ QUOTE ] I'll agree with this. Got chewed for my opinion, a lot. If you have a union job, the company you work for has to stay productive for you to keep your job. But ,I kinda like a few rights and my share of things, I've always pulled my share of the work load, where I've been. Even at Paramont. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[TheBeast]

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What about you, do you work in a business or are you paid by tax dollars?



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I also work in a business, am not paid like alot of people around here. I do work for myself, I don't have any problem whatsoever with coal or coal miners I know they are the lifeblood of this area. I do have a problem with a neighbor of mine that has a new house and gets himself and his wife a new vehicle every year or 2 and all he has ever done as far as back as I personally can remember is be a union representative, makes a dang good living off of the miners that they fleece dues out of. I always thought they had some interesting family get togethers since his brother operates non-union mines. IMO if the union was for the workers solely then the heads of the union should be workers as well and not living off of the workers as they do. I talk to alot of union and non-union both here at the store and both of them seem just as happy as the other and none the worse either way, and for the most part neither really says that one is much better than the other anymore just that the union became so engrained in them by their fathers and grandfathers that they don't know anything else. For the most part the ones that did go away from the union and get non-union jobs do say that they feel that they have it better know non-union than their fathers did as union workers.

Oh well this is an debate that could go on forever since it has been going on for at least the last 60-70 years here.

The union takes, GOOD care of it's upper level people, perhaps too good. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] The biggest thing the UMWA has is it's healthcare for the retirees. I've worked both sides of the fence. the deal at Pittston was a "walk off" on folks that were too old to argue. It all comes down to a few companies buying up everything and doing about what they want. Coal, oil, defense...it is all the same. Check the Parsons Project in Iraq, the DOD has declared the building unusable. But somebody bid the contract and did the work. And paid the taxes, and stood guard. In my opinion if healthcare was nationalized it would remove the burden from the person or company and make a more level playing field for the whole country.