{Charleston, West Virginia}...Thousands of United Mine Workers members gathered at Charleston's Haddad Riverfront Park Tuesday poised for a strike against Patriot Coal, Arch Coal, Peabody and anybody else involved in a current struggle over retiree benefits. UMWA members are angered. They claim St. Louis-based Arch Coal and Peabody Coal Corporation deliberately established Patriot Coal as a subsidiary in 2007, and then quietly moved all of Arch Coal and Peabody Coal retirees under the Patriot umbrella. Patriot filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. Union leaders say that was the plan from the beginning. UMWA President Cecil Roberts said only five percent of the pensioners who are retirees of Patriot Coal ever worked for Patriot Coal, and Roberts asked, "How can you be retired from a company you never worked for?" Union members marched down Virginia Street and amassed in front of the Robert C. Byrd Federal Courthouse. While they rallied outside, inside the courthouse a change of venue hearing was underway via teleconference in a New York City federal courtroom. The union wants the court proceedings in Patriot's bankruptcy case, along with their challenge, to be moved from a federal court in New York City to Charleston Federal Court. Many UMWA miners currently on the Patriot payroll, but presently laid off, said they were ready to man a picket line.
