Yesterday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., uphold a lower court ruling that requires Massey Energy to rehire 85 union miners who lost their jobs after the coal giant took over the Mammoth Coal complex in 2004.
A three-judge panel backed the previous ruling by U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin involving the United Mine Workers members. The UMW miners lost their jobs after Massey bought the operation near the Kanawha-Fayette county border in August 2004 from Horizon Natural Resources after Horizon went into bankruptcy.
The 4th Circuit’s decision is posted here, and Judge Goodwin’s August 2008 ruling is here.
United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts issued a statement on the case, and it is posted on the union’s Web site here.
“We are pleased with the 4th Circuit’s decision,” Robert said in that statement. “We look forward to the day when miners who were illegally discriminated against get their rightful jobs back, and to all the miners at the Mammoth mine having the benefit and protection of working under a UMWA contract.”
Here is some more background on the issue, from a story the Gazette published in February 2008:
For decades, union members mined and processed coal at Cannelton operations southeast of Charleston. In August 2004, Massey bought the operations out of the Horizon Natural Resources bankruptcy, after a federal bankruptcy judge agreed to throw out a clause of Horizon’s contract with the UMW that required any buyers to maintain the union work agreement.
But in a November ruling, NLRB judge Paul Bogas concluded the bankruptcy court ruling alone did not insulate Massey from an obligation to bargain collectively with workers. The legal test, the judge explained, is whether Massey conducts essentially the same business as the previous owner and whether a majority of the work force are former employees of the previous owner.
Massey argued it conducted a different business because it used two continuous-mining machines in each section at Cannelton, instead of the one machine previously used by Horizon. Bogas concluded that this argument was “wholly inadequate.”
Bogas also ruled Massey had “discriminatorily refused to hire its predecessor’s employees” in order to avoid having a majority of the previous owner’s workers on hand.
The National Labor Relations Act, passed in 1935, protects the rights of most private-sector workers to organize labor unions to collectively bargain for better pay and working conditions.
More than 200 UMW members lost their jobs when Massey assumed control of the Cannelton operations on Sept. 24 or Sept. 25, 2004, the judge’s ruling stated. Between 19 and 22 of those workers eventually were rehired, the ruling said.
Gary Muffley, the NLRB regional director, issued complaints in August and October 2006, alleging Massey had violated federal labor law in its dealings with UMW members who had worked for Cannelton and its subsidiary, Dunn Coal and Dock. The complaints named 85 individual miners who had allegedly been discriminated against.
It’s important to note that this is far from the end of this dispute.
The NLRB judge ordered Massey to both offer UMWA members their jobs back, and to bargain in good faith with the union. Goodwin issued a temporary order that required Massey to offer workers their jobs back, but did not implement the requirement that the company bargain with the workers toward a union contract. The 4th Circuit has upheld Goodwin’s ruling. But Massey is still appealing the rest of the NLRB judge’s decision, and that case has not yet been decided by the full NLRB.
Phil Smith, a spokesman for the UMWA, said that Massey has offered some union workers jobs. Smith said “a handful” of miners accepted, but that many did not because they did not want to go back under Massey’s non-union working conditions.
Updated, 1:30 p.m. — this just in from Massey spokesman Jeff Gillenwater:
Although we disagree with the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, it is important to note while appealing U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin’s decision requiring Mammoth Coal Company to hire these individuals, Mammoth Coal made job offers to these 85 miners. From these 85 extended offers of employment, only nine miners accepted the employment opportunity. Today, seven of these miners remain with the company.Â
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We West Virginians need to tack our state back from Massy Industries they have proved they can buy what they want in this state including court officials.” What Don wants Don gets”. Support the UMWA and this might get us started in getting our state back.
[...] they did not want to go back under Massey’s non-union working conditions. Read the full story (4th Circuit backs ruling against Massey in Mammoth case) for extensive background and documents on the [...]
You need to investigate and report on a couple of things regarding Mammoth/Cannelton:
1) Did the bankruptcy judge rule that the purchaser would not have to be a successor to the UMWA contract for this operation?
2) Did Massey offer several UMWA members jobs at this operation and if so why did they either not take the job or why did the ones that did take employment later quit?
Hey Casey,
Before you start demanding that we investigate things, read the whole article … OK?
Your point No. 2 is addressed in my blog post, with the quote from Jeff Gillenwater at Massey:
Although we disagree with the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, it is important to note while appealing U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin’s decision requiring Mammoth Coal Company to hire these individuals, Mammoth Coal made job offers to these 85 miners. From these 85 extended offers of employment, only nine miners accepted the employment opportunity. Today, seven of these miners remain with the company.
As for point 1, that’s been covered in previous stories about this dispute. Yes, a bankruptcy judge waived Massey’s obligation to comply with the UMWA contract. But the NLRB ALJ said that bankruptcy ruling alone did not insulate Massey.
The ALJ’s ruling is online here:
http://www.nlrb.gov/shared_files/ALJ%20Decisions/2007/JD-73-07.pdf
Go to page 64:
Such a bankruptcy sale order in no way insulates against the possibility that a buyer will take actions subsequent to the sale that give rise to a successorship bargaining obligation or require the buyer to maintain the existing terms and conditions of employment.
Ken.
Ken,
I did not mean to demand an investigation. I only meant to suggest reporting on things that would possibly give a more complete and balanced report on the story. I agree that the bankruptcy decision was probably covered in previous articles but it is relevant to the story and could have been covered again. I think Massey bought the property out of bankruptcy only after knowing that that they were not obligated to be a successor to a labor agreement. Otherwise it may not have been purchased and subsequently operated (by anyone).
Also I think that there is more to the situation regarding why ex-employees did not accept or later quit employment at Massey. And I am referring to the period of time after Massey purchased the property and not during the time of the appeal of Goodwin (as stated by the Massey spokesman).
RE:”Go to page 64:
Such a bankruptcy sale order in no way insulates against the possibility that a buyer will take actions subsequent to the sale that give rise to a successorship bargaining obligation”. What actions did Massey take to give rise to an obligation?
Thanks
Casey,
Again … you should read the entire story (and probably follow the links) before drawing conclusions — In this instance, for example, the very issue you asked about was covered in this original post, where I quoted this from one of those previous stories:
“For decades, union members mined and processed coal at Cannelton operations southeast of Charleston. In August 2004, Massey bought the operations out of the Horizon Natural Resources bankruptcy, after a federal bankruptcy judge agreed to throw out a clause of Horizon’s contract with the UMW that required any buyers to maintain the union work agreement.
“But in a November ruling, NLRB judge Paul Bogas concluded the bankruptcy court ruling alone did not insulate Massey from an obligation to bargain collectively with workers. The legal test, the judge explained, is whether Massey conducts essentially the same business as the previous owner and whether a majority of the work force are former employees of the previous owner.”
As for Massey’s obligations, the UMW argued against the original bankruptcy ruling, and I’m sure the company’s quite competent counsel (Coal Tattoo reader and commenter Forrest Roles) anticipated that the union would file unfair labor practice allegations against the company — giving rise to the NLRB case that was discussed here.
Regardless, one of the issues in the NLRB case and before Judge Goodwin and the 4th circuit is whether or not that bankruptcy ruling essentially negated federal labor law protections for employees. So far, the NLRB’s ALJ, Judge Goodwin and the 4th Circuit have said that it didn’t.
Massey continues to appeal, so stay tuned for more on that as it happens.
Finally, the issues about the hiring of UMW members by Massey (or non-hiring, as the case may be) are discussed in quite a lot of detail in the ALJ’s ruling, which I linked to in a previous comment.
Part of the beauty of blogs is that we can link to these documents and readers can see for themselves what they say … I’d encourage anyone who has questions like Casey’s to take a look at that ruling for themselves.
As for what actions Massey took that gave rise to a successorship obligation, they are outlined in the same paragraph I quoted from … here’s what it says:
Similarly, in the instant case, the Respondents’ status as legal successor and its responsibility to maintain the existing terms of employment during bargaining are not based on the 2002 National Coal Agreement or the successorship provision that the bankruptcy court voided pre-sale, but on actions that the Respondents took post-sale. More specifically, post-sale, the Respondents continued the predecessor’s essential business, discriminatorily refused to hire the predecessor’s employees,69 and announced to employees that there was no union at Mammoth actions that under Love’s Barbeque, supra, Advanced Stretchforming, supra, and related precedent, establish Mammoth as the legal successor and create an obligation to maintain the predecessor’s terms and conditions of employment pending good faith negotiations.
The ruling speaks for itself … give it a read.
Ken.
Ken,
Thanks. I was not surprised by the ALJ’s opinion but was with the others. I guess we’ll see what happens on appeal. I still believe that there is more to the story on the hiring of ex-employees but I’ll be quiet about it.
Thanks again.