Preserving Coal Country
Original paper by United Mine Workers of America
Keeping America’s coal miners, families and communities whole in an era of global energy transition
Introduction At the end of 2011, nearly 92,000 people worked in the American coal industry, the most since 1997i . Coal production in the United States topped a billion tons for the 21st consecutive year. Both thermal and metallurgical coal were selling at premium prices, and companies were making record profits.
Then the bottom fell out. The global economy slowed, putting pressure on steelmaking and metallurgical coal production. Foreign competition from China, Australia, India and elsewhere cut into met coal production.
Domestically, huge increases in production from newly-tapped natural gas fields, primarily as a result of hydraulic fracturing of deep shale formations, caused the price of gas to drop below that of coal for the first time in years. As a result, utilities began switching the fuel used to generate electricity from coal to gas. An enlarging suite of environmental regulations also adversely impacted coal usage, production and employment.
By 2016, just 51,800 people were working in the coal industryii . 40,000 jobs had been lost.
Companies went bankrupt. Retirees’ hard-won retiree health care and pensions were threatened. Active union miners saw their collective bargaining agreements – including provisions that had been negotiated over decades — thrown out by federal bankruptcy courts. Nonunion miners had no recourse in bankruptcy courts and were forced to accept whatever scraps their employers chose to throw their way.
Since 2012, more than 60 coal companies have filed either for Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy or Chapter 7 liquidation. Almost no company has been immune.
In 2017 and again in 2019, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and its bipartisan allies in Congress, led by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), successfully preserved the retiree health care and pensions that the government had promised and tens of thousands of miners had earned in sweat and blood.
The UMWA was successful in preserving union recognition, our members’ jobs and reasonable levels of pay and benefits at every company as they emerged from bankruptcy, but in no case has the contract that came out of bankruptcy been the same as the one our members enjoyed when a company went into bankruptcy Coal employment falling again The pain hasn’t let up. Coal employment stayed relatively flat from 2016-2109, but coalfired power plants were still closing at an accelerating pace. A promised rebound in coal production and employment never occurred. Employment in thermal coal slipped, while metallurgical jobs briefly ticked up before nosing down again.
Then came the Coronavirus. The global economy came nearly to a halt. Tens of millions lost their jobs nearly overnight, including thousands of American coal miners. Electricity demand dropped significantly, causing production cuts at thermal coal mines. Worldwide steel production slowed, causing a drop in metallurgical coal prices. Miners were laid off or worked short weeks for months. Some mines closed entirely, and are still shut down today
By December 2020, U.S. coal employment had fallen to 44,100 jobs, 7,000 fewer than in January of that yeariii. Of those 44,100, roughly 34,000 are hourly workers; the rest are upper management, supervisors, foremen, office workers, salespeople, mining engineers and others.
The truth is that rank-and-file coal miners have become scarce in the United States. There are fewer hourly coal miners working in the country today than at any time since the federal government began keeping statistics. The rise of renewable energy – windmills, solar panels, geothermal energy – is transforming the energy marketplace and the jobs that go with it. Further government action in Washington has the potential to dramatically slash coal employment further, and soon.
The devastating impact on families and communities cannot be overstated. Divorce, drug addiction, imprisonment and suicide rates are all on the rise. Poverty levels are creeping back up in Northern and Central Appalachia, the heart of coal countryiv. For every one direct coal job that has been lost, four other jobs have disappeared in these communities, meaning a quarter of a million jobs already have been lost.
The communities that have been hit hard by the drop in coal production and employment have received little help from Washington, even though policies developed in the Nation’s Capital are to a large degree responsible for coal’s depression. Now, that scenario threatens to play out again as policy-makers prepare to quickly reduce coal utilization for power generation without taking simultaneous action to enable workers, families and communities to make a true transition to a brighter future.
Read the complete paper here