WASHINGTON - More than 5,000 union coal miners and retirees have received a reprieve - albeit only 30 days - in an ongoing struggle to preserve health care benefits that were lost when Horizon Natural Resources filed bankruptcy last August.

Southern Illinois miners and retirees were notified by UMW President Cecil Roberts last week that benefits will be extended until April 30 or until health care can be permanently funded for the eligible miners through the UMW 1993 Benefit Plan.

Roberts explained that the 1993 Benefit Plan was established to provide health care benefits to retirees who were not covered by the Coal Act who worked for companies that have gone out of business and not longer provide health care benefits provided under the national collective bargaining agreement.

UMW officials in Washington declined to discuss the 30-day extension beyond what the letter to members stated. According to information provided in a letter to the affected miners and retirees, the additional health care coverage will be paid from the Selective Strike Fund. The letter also stated trustees of the 1993 Benefit Plan will meet in April to vote whether to extend health care benefits permanently.

U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Belleville, has been on the forefront in the miners' battle to maintain health care benefits. Only two weeks ago Costello was co-sponsor of legislation aimed at keeping coal companies that file bankruptcy from shirking their collective bargaining obligations. Costello also has been involved in legislation that will reauthorize funds from the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Act to fund permanent benefits.

Costello said the 30-day extension will give union officials and lawmakers breathing room in an effort to secure full-time benefits.

"I applaud the UMWA for extending temporary health care benefits to over 5,000 Horizon miners and retirees until the end of April," Costello said. "This allows time for these miners to be placed into the 1993 Fund so that they have some health care benefits which they have worked so hard to secure."

The legislation was prompted last August when lawyers for Horizon Natural Resources argued successfully during two bankruptcy hearings that - as part of its bankruptcy reorganization plan - Horizon should not be held responsible for health care benefits for the union miners and retirees who had previously worked for Zeigler Coal and Old Ben Coal.

Costello called current bankruptcy laws "grossly unfair."

"We have to continue to live up to the commitment we made to our nation's miners," Costello said. "I will continue to work with my colleagues and the UMWA on legislation for our miners to insure that they have adequate health care for the future."

Costello said enacting bankruptcy reform is the second part of a strategy to provide health coverage to miners who have lost their benefits while ensuring benefits cannot be taken away in the future.

Last September, only days before miners' benefits were set to expire, UMW officials announced the union will pick up the cost for health care for a six-month period for the miners affected by the Horizon decision. That last-minute reprieve by the union guaranteed that the retirees and working miners would be covered through March 31 this year.

Costello said the Coal Act, passed by Congress in 1992, established the UMWA Combined Benefits Fund, the 1992 Benefit Fund and the 1993 Benefit Fund, which was a combination of the 1950 and 1974 benefits packages. The Coal Act also established a benefit plans for "orphans," the retirees who worked for companies that were no longer in business or for retirees who could not be connected to a specific company.

"Coal companies pay into the funds, but due to the fact that fewer companies remain in business and interest on the funds has declined, adjustments are needed to keep the Funds, particularly the 93 Fund, solvent."

The Coal Act stated that this fund would be supported by interest from the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Act. The reclamation act was enacted in 1977 as part of the Surface Mining Law that provides for the restoration of lands mined and abandoned or left inadequately restored. Production fees of 35 cents per ton on surface mined coal and 15 cents per ton on coal mined underground are collected from coal companies at all active coal mining operations. The fund had a balance of $1.6 billion as of June 4, 2004. Costello said the proposed legislation will make it illegal for a bankruptcy judge to terminate a company's responsibility to pay promised health benefits.

"We have seen too many cases where health benefits that employees worked decades to secure were wiped away in an instant by a bankruptcy judge's pen," Costello said. "Coal mining is hard, dangerous work that supplies critical energy resources for the country. Our miners deserve to know that their health benefits will be there when they retire."

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