worker retirement
note: not to be confused with pension plan, refers to RWI<div></div><div>
</div><div><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Workers Rally to Expose Peabody's Efforts to Avoid Paying Their Pensions</h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
Since January of this year, <a href="http://peoplesworld.org/miners-arrested-in-protest-against-coal-company" target="blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">thousands of miners</a> <span class="print-footnote" style="font-size: xx-small;">[12]</span> and their families have protested Peabody spinning off its eastern United States coal mining operations -- where many workers were represented by the United Mine Workers of America -- in order to get rid of what its CEO Gregory Boyce called "<a href="http://www.fairnessatpatriot.org/background" target="blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">legacy liabilities</a> <span class="print-footnote" style="font-size: xx-small;">[13]</span>," a fancy word for the earned retirement pensions and health care obligations of the men and women who toiled in underground mines for decades building Peabody's wealth. The operations that were spun off were dubbed "Patriot Coal," a corporation that has sought to escape its obligations to miners through federal bankruptcy proceedings.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At the first of several rallies near Peabody's headquarters and a federal courthouse in St. Louis that is considering the bankruptcy petition, numerous miners -- including the president of United Mine Workers of America, Cecil Roberts -- have been arrested for civil disobedience.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The UMWA's Roberts decried Peabody for its role in what he called a "scam" to deprive hardworking miners of their retirement futures and access to life-saving health care benefits, claiming that the corporations may "have $1,000 an hour lawyers, but they've got $1 an hour morals," according to a report on that rally. The local leader of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists called the effort to discharge the pension obligations "despicable and criminal."</p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Peabody Makes Billions; Peabody's CEO Paid Nearly $15,000 a Day in Total Compensation</h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According to Forbes magazine, Boyce (Peabody's CEO) is one of the top 25 highest paid CEOs in America this year, with a total annual compensation package of <a href="http://www.forbes.com/pictures/ffdj45ekhm/gregory-boyce" target="blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">$30.7 million</a> <span class="print-footnote" style="font-size: xx-small;">[14]</span> (or the equivalent of $14,759 per day in total compensation). When Boyce created Patriot Coal, he <a href="http://www.fairnessatpatriot.org/background" target="blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">boasted</a> <span class="print-footnote" style="font-size: xx-small;">[13]</span> that his maneuver would reduce Peabody's "legacy liabilities by roughly $1 billion," and his Chief Financial Officer bragged that Peabody's "retiree health care liability and related expense will be reduced by 40%..."</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Peabody's revenue in 2012 was more than $7 billion. While the U.S. and global economies have staggered since the Wall Street meltdown in late 2008, Peabody's income has risen by nearly 33% in the past three years (which is roughly the same period since it loaded up Patriot Coal with its pension debt). Over the past decade, Peabody has spent millions on lobbying as well as more than a million on campaign contributions to politicians, in addition to untold sums on its legal and PR teams.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Peabody is one of nine private sector funders of ALEC's conference at the "Chairman" level, down from eleven last
year and down from the nineteen special interests funding ALEC at this level at its 2011 conference in New Orleans.</p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4">Peabody Joins Other Climate Change Deniers as Top Funders of ALEC</font></h2></div><div>------</div>