Tuesday, January 29, 2013

United Mine Workers president among union members arrested at St. Louis protest » The Commercial Appeal

United Mine Workers president among union members arrested at St. Louis protest » The Commercial Appeal:

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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The president of the United Mine Workers of America and nine other union members were arrested Tuesday while protesting outside the St. Louis headquarters of Peabody Energy, one of the companies the union accuses of orchestrating business deals that bankrupted Patriot Coal.
That Chapter 11 bankruptcy has jeopardized pension and health care benefits for some 10,000 retirees and another 10,000 dependents, mostly in West Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.
More than 750 current and former miners from those states and their families rallied outside the federal building in St. Louis, where a bankruptcy hearing was being held, before marching through the city streets to Peabody's building.
Neither Peabody nor Patriot immediately commented, but the union posted an hourlong video of the event online, with union president Cecil Roberts leading the crowd in repeatedly chanting "Unions!" as police lined the federal courthouse steps behind them.

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