Canadian rail strike leaves U.S. commodities unable to move; agricultural interests push for a resolution

Rail-traffic has stopped at U.S.-Canadian
border. (Denley Photography, Unsplash)

As U.S. farmers prepare for expected bumper crops of corn and soybeans, the shutdown of Canada's two largest railways threatens a chunk of their incomes. The fallout from Canada's unresolved rail closures stretches beyond agriculture. It could have "dire consequences for North America’s economy, threatening deliveries of cars, timber and petroleum products," reports Lauren Kaori Gurley of The Washington Post. "The U.S. railway Union Pacific has said a shutdown would sideline more than 2,500 railcars that normally cross the U.S.-Canada border each day."

The two Canadian railways, the Canadian Pacific Kansas City railroad and the Canadian National Railway have been unable to strike a deal with Teamsters Canada "despite days of heated negotiations," Gurley writes. "The Teamsters say the railways are requesting that the union make concessions 'on crew scheduling, rail safety, and fatigue management' — echoing union concerns at the heart of a threatened 2022 rail strike in the United States." The two railroads insist they have offered "significant pay increases and addressed concerns about scheduling."

U.S. agricultural interests are pushing hard for a resolution. Gurley reports, "In a letter addressed to President Joe Biden as well as other U.S. and Canadian officials, dozens of trade associations, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cotton Council, said a rail shutdown would trigger 'harmful consequences for Canadian and American agricultural producers, the agricultural industry, and both domestic and global food security.'”

Earlier this week, U.S. companies worked to slow the flow of goods to the U.S. Canadian border, which means "that massive flow of goods has screeched to a complete halt," Gurley explains. But the problems go both ways. "Murad Al-Katib, chief executive of AGT Foods, one of the world’s largest suppliers of staple foods such as beans and wheat, said food supply chains would be 'immediately disrupted,' noting that many commodities — such as peas, lentils, chickpeas and durum wheat used for pasta — travel across the Canadian border to U.S. processing and packaging facilities."

Meanwhile, Teamsters Canada said that it won't agree to the rail companies' "grueling schedules," and in turn, both railway companies said "they’ve made generous offers to the union," Gurley writes. "The Canadian government has rejected calls to intervene, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged parties to 'get to a resolution.'"

National Labor Relations Board judge tells Dollar General to stop messing with worker efforts to win union representation

Shellie Parsons rests after sweeping trash in the store
parking lot. (Photo: Sophie Park, The Washington Post)

Six workers at a Dollar General store in Winsted, Conn., tried to form a union, "and failed in what is now an off-kilter win," reports Jessica Kuruthukulangara of Seeking Alpha, an investors' newsletter. "The discount retailer was found to have interfered, coerced and restrained its employees from union organizing . . . National Labor Relations Board Judge Arthur Amchan wrote, 'The unfair labor practices involve individuals at the highest levels of management. . . .These practices were also committed pursuant to a corporate policy as to how to deal with organizing efforts by employees.'"

The story begins with one employee, Shellie Parsons, who witnessed management's aggressive tactics and worried about losing her job. With few options, she sought union protection, reports Greg Jaffe of The Washington Post. She called Local 371 of the United Food and Commercial Workers. "The workers wanted more job security. They wanted a process to ensure that their complaints weren't ignored. They wanted to know that their labor was valued and that they were respected. . . . Most of [the Winsted workers] were making minimum wage or just slightly above it."

Dollar General, which closed its only successfully unionized store in Auxvasse, Mo., responded to the employees' efforts by hiring "five anti-union consultants, each of whom was paid $2,700 a day, according to documents filed with the Labor Department. It dispatched three out-of-state executives to the store who shadowed the employees for the month, working alongside them. Sometimes executives talked baseball, hunting or music with the store employees," Jaffe writes. "Other times, they warned them about the union, which they said would make them pay costly dues and ruin their relationship with their store manager, whom they liked and admired."

In the weeks leading up to the Winsted store's representation election, employee Jake Serafini was fired for cursing, Jaffe reports. "The dismissal shook some of Serafini's co-workers, who were convinced that he was fired because he was pro-union . . . Parsons said that a Dollar General executive had warned [another employee] about the closing of the Auxvasse store and suggested that the same thing could happen in Connecticut. . . . Dollar General, in response to questions from the Post, said that no threats were made to close the Connecticut store."

The union lost the vote, but Parson "believed that the election hadn't been fair, that Dollar General had 'polluted' her colleagues' minds with falsehoods and fear," Jaffe writes and the NLRB judge agreed "that Dollar General had violated labor laws and used 'blatant unfair' practices to discourage unionization. . . Amchan directed Dollar General to cease and desist from these labor practices and reinstate the fired activist employee."

Several states put the brakes on autonomous vehicles; Teamsters back bill that would require a safety driver

Tractor-trailers stacked up on the shoulder of Interstate 70 near
Aurora, Colo. (Photo by David Zalubowski, The Associated Press)

Get ready for a bumpy ride. Several states are looking at entirely driverless autonomous vehicles "to consider legislation backed by the Teamsters union to require that a safety driver always is on board," reports Austin Jenkins of Pluribus News. "Amid the prevailing trend of nearly two dozen states explicitly allowing the testing and deployment of driverless vehicles. So-called driver-in legislation has been introduced in California, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, New Mexico and Texas."

California may have the most contentious battle. "Teamsters are backing a bill that would prohibit medium- and heavy-duty vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or more from operating on public roads without a human safety driver. The bipartisan bill, which boasts more than 20 coauthors, cleared its first committee this week with strong support," Jenkins reports. "If approved, the law would preempt the California Department of Motor Vehicles from issuing rules allowing heavier autonomous vehicles to ply the roads without a driver. California currently allows driverless light-duty vehicles under certain circumstances."

Jenkins reports, "In January, the DMV held a workshop with their Highway Patrol that signaled what the agency calls a 'starting point for the potential development of heavy-duty autonomous vehicle regulations.'" Teamster Jason Rabinowitz told Jenkins, "We don't want the DMV to make this decision. A decision of this magnitude should be made by the legislature." Commenting on the Teamsters efforts, Jeff Farrah, executive director of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, told Jenkins, "Trying to wedge these driver-only bills into these state capitols is something that we think is not the right way to do it."

On the one hand, "Backers say the bill is about protecting public safety and jobs," Jenkins writes. "The prime author of the bill, Assembly-member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, cited experience with light-duty driverless vehicles. . . . She pointed to incidents where the vehicles have blocked intersections and impeded emergency vehicles, among other issues. She argued that trucks, because of their size and weight, pose an 'exponentially greater threat to the public.'"

One the other hand, "The bill has drawn the opposition of more than 40 companies and business organizations who say autonomous trucks offer the promise of safer roads, more reliable supply chain efficiency and new career opportunities," Jenkins writes. "Farrah countered that the AV industry has a 'remarkable safety record' and said the industry offers a path to dramatically reducing the nearly 40,000 motor vehicle fatalities each year in the U.S., including those involving trucks."

While California lawmakers remain positive "about the future of AVs and their ability to ultimately make the roads safer, but they also expressed concern about moving too quickly to deploy the technology without adequate safeguards," Jenkins reports. Transportation Committee Chair Laura Friedman told Jenkins, "Putting 80,000-pound vehicles on the road without a driver would happen sometime after we all feel really, really good about the state of single-passenger autonomous vehicles."

USDA meatpacker grants for pandemic health and safety don't address underlying problems, say worker advocates

Works process pork at a Triumph Foods plant in St. Joseph, Missouri, in April 2017.
An investigation showed plant officials sacrificed worker safety for profits during the pandemic.
(USDA photo by Preston Keres)

The Agriculture Department's new Farm and Food Workers Relief grant program provides $600 to help farmworkers and meatpacking workers with pandemic-related health and safety costs. Though it could help families, it doesn't address underlying safety problems for such workers, according to an organizer for poultry workers in Arkansas. Kristi Eaton reports for The Daily Yonder.

Magaly Licolli, executive director of Venceremos, told the Yonder that the USDA must do more to regulate line speeds, and that many deaths that happened during the pandemic, when line speeds were sometimes increased, could have been prevented.

"In many cases during the pandemic, workers were forced to work, at first without proper personal protective equipment and then without social distancing measures and then with increased line speeds, she said," Eaton reports.

Licolli also noted that while such grants emphasize workers' personal safety efforts, much of the problem has to do with company decisions. The pandemic has made existing safety issues worse, she said, and companies that say they want to improve must listen to workers' voices when creating new regulations.

Quick hits: local investors saved two rural California papers; report showcases rural economic success stories

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Local investors saved one rural California paper and then bought another. Read more here.

After the Trump administration relocated the Bureau of Land Management headquarters out West, more than 87 percent of the headquarters employees quit rather than move. Read more here.

A proposed bill aims to make sure rural critical-access hospitals are able to maintain that status to maintain access to higher Medicare reimbursements and special grant programs. Read more here.

Rural hospital closures not only hurt patients' ability to access health care, but also result in fewer providers and poorer health outcomes, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. Read more here.

A report shows how three rural areas leaned on their strengths to survive and thrive. Read more here.

Dairy consumption is up during the pandemic. Read more here.

Data from the past three presidential elections in the Sun Belt and the Frost Belt states illustrates the widening rural-urban political gap. Read more here.

Rural communities are getting nationwide attention, but what should they do with it? Read more here.

Amazon employees in a town near Birmingham, Ala., are trying to unionize. Read more here.

While U.S. agricultural exports rose in the second half of 2020, mounting evidence suggests shipping companies are sending empty containers back to China instead of loading them up with American ag products. Read more here.

Burn Awareness Week is next week; here are some tips for parents and kids on how to stay safe around the home and the farm. Read more here.

A new non-fiction book, Big White Ghetto, takes a fairly unsympathetic tour of impoverished areas in the U.S., including many rural locales. Read more here.

An Obama fellow wants to boost the arts in small towns through theater. Read more here.

The pandemic is hurting the availability of child care, and parents are paying the price. Read more here.

Meatpacking workers say company policies force them to work or risk being fired when they have covid-19 symptoms

Some meatpacking workers say company attendance policies have forced them to go to work or risk being fired for absenteeism when they have covid-19 symptoms. Meatpacking plants are a major source of outbreaks in rural counties, Heather Schlitz reports in a collaboration between the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA Today, funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Most major meatpackers use a point system in which workers receive a points for missing work. After a certain number, they get fired. "For a few months earlier this year, as case counts swelled, Tyson Foods suspended its point system, and Smithfield Foods said it has halted its version for the time being," Schlitz reports. "However, the point system has endured at Tyson and JBS plants throughout the pandemic, and it has continued to coerce people with potential covid-19 symptoms into showing up to work, said plant employees, their family members, activists and researchers."

As one worker told Schlitz: "If they see that you can walk, they’ll tell you to keep working . . . If you can’t stand on your own, they’ll send you home." Spokespeople for Tyson and JBS, the nation's two largest meatpackers, told Schlitz that they encourage employees to stay home while sick. A JBS spokesperson said the company has never taken points from a worker for a documented illness during the pandemic.

However, a worker may display symptoms long before receiving a confirmed coronavirus diagnosis, due to testing delays. The point system has likely contributed to the spread of the virus, Jose Oliva, co-founder of HEAL Food Alliance, a non-profit that organizes food industry workers, told Schlitz.

Weekly fact check: Trump's long history with conspiracy theories, and Biden's misleading union endorsement claim

With just a few weeks to go before Election Day and both presidential campaigns turning up the heat, fact-checking is more important than ever. Here's some of the latest:

During his Oct. 15 town hall, President Trump defended retweeting a conspiracy theory that accused Joe Biden of murder. "The theory, which has no basis in fact, specifically claimed Biden had members of SEAL Team 6 killed to cover up a purportedly failed assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Trump retweeted a post spreading the theory, therefore amplifying the message to his 87 million followers," Angela Fichera and Saranac Hale Spencer report for FactCheck.org. "At the same event, Trump also declined to condemn QAnon — the widespread conspiracy theory movement that baselessly suggests Trump is dismantling an elite child sex trafficking ring involving high-profile Democrats. He claimed he knows 'nothing about' it.

"During a campaign rally, President Donald Trump said that once he came down with covid-19, people for partisan reasons shifted from saying immunity was lifelong to saying it lasted only a few months," Jessica McDonald reports for FactCheck. "Experts, however, haven’t changed their estimates for immunity duration, which remains unknown — but unlikely to be lifelong."

Meanwhile, during Biden's Oct. 15 town hall, Biden said the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers had endorsed him. But that's misleading, Jessica Calefati reports for PolitiFact. The Pittsburgh-area local did endorse Biden, but the organization as a whole, which represents 50,000 industry workers nationwide, did not.

Also during that town hall, Biden insinuated that Republicans eliminated funding for a community policing program. But that's false, Lou Jacobson reports for Politfact. Funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services program, which Biden spearheaded as part of a 1994 crime bill, was not eliminated. "Biden’s campaign told PolitiFact that he was referring to Trump’s fiscal 2019 budget proposal, which would have halved funding for the community policing program. But this proposal wasn’t enacted, and it did not amount to an 'elimination,'" Jacobson reports. "The program is smaller than it was in its early years, when its budget ranged between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion, and crime rates were higher. But funding was never zeroed out."

Quick hits: movement seeks to increase number of young Black farmers; hope outlasts prosperity in oil-bust town

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Movement seeks to increase number of young Black farmers. Read more here.

Smaller specialty flour companies are helping revitalize local economies; could other industries copy their model? Read more here.

Hope outlasts prosperity in N.D. town flattened by oil bust. Read more here.

Could pandemic make it even harder for rural students to go to college? Read more here.

The Environmental Protection Agency has canceled its paid subscription to Energy & Environment News, one of the largest publications dedicated to covering the EPA. That ends EPA employees' free access to coverage about the agency, including reporting on EPA's "union-busting" actions. Read more here.

Poultry workers' unions sue USDA over line speed waivers

"The union representing workers at chicken processing plants in six states sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday, saying its policy of allowing companies to slaughter birds more quickly endangers workers and makes it more difficult to protect against spread of the coronavirus," David Pitt reports for The Associated Press. "The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and local unions representing 10 plants in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Missouri joined with nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen to file the lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture allowed plants to waive line speed caps in 2018, after it said the issue had been studied via pilot programs for 25 years. However, "the unions said in court documents that an average of eight workers per year died on the job between 2013 and 2017 in poultry processing plants, and that workers commonly suffer sprains, lacerations, and contusions," Pitt reports. "They contend that research and worker experience shows work speed is a major contributing factor to the high injury rates suffered by poultry workers."

Senate Democrats introduced a bill on Tuesday that would block faster line speeds at meatpacking plants during the pandemic and suspend line-speed waivers already issued, Chuck Abbott reports for Successful Farming.

Ag economists say moving USDA research agencies to Kansas City would cost, not save, millions of dollars

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced plans to relocate the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City this fall, on the grounds that it would move the agencies closer to stakeholders and save taxpayers $300 million over the next 15 years. But an analysis by the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association found that the move will actually cost taxpayers between $37 million and $128 million, Bryce Oates reports for The Daily Yonder.

"The AAEA economists, including two former ERS administrators, criticized USDA for overstating the costs of keeping ERS and NIFA in the capital region while failing to account for lost value of employees who choose to retire or resign rather than move. Analysts also criticized USDA for not making the full cost-benefit-analysis available to the public," Oates reports.

The economists also criticized the USDA for ignoring cost-saving measures that would have allowed the agencies to stay in the D.C. area, such as moving to cheaper real estate nearby. "USDA owns three buildings in the capital region already, AAEA said in the analysis, and the agency neglected to evaluate the option of eliminating rental payments altogether by moving employees into existing available space," Oates reports. 

"AAEA criticism of USDA’s projections also included lost value of research by employees. AAEA estimates that between 50 to 70 percent of ERS and NIFA employees would choose to retire or quit rather than move," Oates reports. The report estimates that between 250 and 400 employees will quit, and most of them are highly skilled workers with a Ph.D. The USDA will only be able to rehire about a quarter of them per year, the report projects, and even after the new workers are hired, it will take them about four years to match the expertise and productivity level of their predecessors. And employees who stay with the agencies and move from Washington D.C. will likely suffer a 25% reduction in productivity in the first year because some of their time will be occupied by moving, selling and buying homes, finding new schools and places of worship, and more, the report predicts.

The report adds another wrinkle to the already controversial issue. Since the USDA announced preliminary plans last August to move the agencies, many have protested that the move was an attempt to force out agency employees whose research has often proven unhelpful to President Trump's policies. Both agencies' employees recently voted to unionize and have joined the American Federation of Government Employees, Oates reports.

USDA to move research agencies from D.C. to Kansas City; employees turn backs on Perdue during his announcement

Unionized ERS and NIFA employees turned backs to the stage 

during Perdue's announcement. (McClatchy photo by Brian Lowry)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Thursday it will move two major offices out of Washington, D.C., to the Kansas City area. It had unveiled the controversial plan to move last August, but until now has not revealed where. The plan has faced strong resistance from employees and others.

"Nearly 550 positions at the Economic Research Service, a statistical agency, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which funds cutting-edge agricultural science, are expected to be moved before year’s end," Ben Guarino reports for The Washington Post. "USDA estimated the savings at $300 million over 15 years from employment and rent" and said the move would put the agencies closer to agricultural stakeholders.

Some ERS and NIFA employees claim the move is an effort to force them to quit, rather than relocate their families, which will allow the USDA to replace them with employees more sympathetic to the Republican Party. The ERS researches the economic effects of climate change, trade policy, food stamps and more. "NIFA unionized earlier this week, and ERS unionized in May in the face of the decision. Union officials have promised to fight the move," Guarino reports.

When Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told employees about the decision to relocate to Kansas City, the unionized employees turned their backs on the stage, Jerry Hagstrom reports for DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

The employees aren't the only ones concerned. Losing experienced employees with specialized skills will set the ERS back "five to 10 years," Gale Buchanan, the USDA's chief scientist under President George W. Bush, and Catherine Woteki, the chief scientist in the Obama administration, told Congress in a letter last year. And Jack Payne, the Unversity of Florida's senior vice president for agriculture, told Guarino that the move would cut NIFA off from collaborating with major federal funding agencies in Washington, Guarino reports.

The relocation effort will suffer further because there isn't a chief scientist at the USDA to oversee ERS, NIFA, and other agency research offices, Guarino reports.

Leaders of union at Casper Star-Tribune express worry about owner Lee Enterprises' commitment to journalism

As union leaders at the Casper Star-Tribune, Wyoming's largest daily, gear up for a new round of contract negotiations, they say they're skeptical of the owner's "commitment to journalism," reports WyoFile, an independent news organization that does in-depth, public-interest reporting.

"Casper News Guild leaders Heather Richards and Seth Klamann said they believe the company is negotiating in good faith," Andrew Graham reports. "But they worry that Lee Enterprises, which owns papers in 20 states and carries hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, doesn’t share their dedication to journalism or to Wyoming. Corporate executives and stockholders are lucratively rewarded, even as communities lose reporters to layoffs."

Lee, which is based in Davenport, Iowa, and owns The Missoulian in Montana, purchased competing paper the Missoula Independent last year and abruptly shuttered the paper yesterday, The Missoulian reports.

Star-Tribune union leaders told Graham they're seeking support from public figures in Casper in hopes of securing a stronger position in negotiations. “We’re just letting them know, this is your paper. This isn’t our paper, this is your paper, and it’s owned by an out-of-state company that’s taking money out your community by laying off reporters … You lose money and simultaneously you lose the institutional knowledge” of the departed journalists.

Publisher Dale Bohren "declined to comment on union negotiations in detail," Graham reports, quoting him: “We are negotiating in good faith. I really don’t have any comment about the union, other than that I have tremendous respect for the work that the newsroom does.”

Quick hits: dying at home in rural Texas; learn about MAT; how to talk to political opposites; origin of the word 'redneck'

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Shawn Jordan, 43, is dying, and he wants to spend the time he has left with his family in rural Texas. But getting home hospice care when you live in a rural area can be difficult because "the long distances and often empty miles mean long hours for nurses, arduous trips to the hospital, and extra work for caregivers who have to learn basic medical care," Megha Satyanarayana reports for Stat, the national health and science website of The Boston Globe.

Medication-assisted therapy is the gold standard for treating opioid addiction, but what is it? The Rural Health Information Hub has an article with plenty of resources to help you better understand the science behind MAT.

With Easter dinner coming up, Donna Kallner with The Daily Yonder has some suggestions for how to foster polite discussion among family members across the political spectrum. Read more here.

West Virginia Public Radio has a fascinating discussion about the history of the state's labor movement--including where the word "redneck" comes from. Read more here.

Special congressional election in Pennsylvania is a possible litmus test for blue-collar union voters' allegiance

Today's special election for a congressional seat in southwestern Pennsylvania is an "acid test for the allegiance of working-class voters," Trip Gabriel reports for The New York Times. Union leadership is backing Democrat Conor Lamb, but it's unclear if the rank-and-file union members in the district, who care more about social issues and voted heavily for Trump in 2016, will follow their lead.

Conor Lamb, state Rep. Rick Saccone

Because of this possible symbolism, months before the midterm elections, both Republican political committees and small-donor Democrats from all over the country have poured millions of dollars into the race. Democrats want to shore up the narrative of a "blue wave" of rising anti-Trump and anti-Republican sentiment, and Republicans want to prove that Trump's connection with blue-collar workers is solid.

President Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have appeared at recent rallies for Saccone, and this morning the president tweeted: "The Economy is raging, at an all time high, and is set to get even better. Jobs and wages up. Vote for Rick Saccone and keep it going," the Observer-Reporter in Washington, Pa., reports. Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America and a member of the AFL-CIO's executive council, pitched Lamb to union workers as a "God-fearing, union-supporting, gun-owning, job-protecting, pension-defending Democrat" in a recent speech, Brent Scher reports for the Washington Free Beacon.

A Monmouth University poll found that 51 percent of voters polled said they support Lamb, compared to 45 percent for Saccone; that's nearly a 10-percentage point swing over last month's poll, in which Saccone had a small edge. Poll director Patrick Murray said, "This district has voted overwhelmingly Republican in recent elections, but a large number of these voters have blue-collar Democratic roots. Lamb seems to have connected with them."

The poll was unclear about whether Trump's steel tariffs, which could help Saccone, had much effect on the race. Click here for updates on the race throughout the day from the Observer-Reporter.

West Virginia teacher strike highlights underpaid rural teacher crisis in other states

W.Va. teachers and supporters celebrate the end of the
strike. (Beckley Register-Herald photo by Rick Barbero)

The teacher strike in West Virginia ended this week with a 5 percent pay raise for all state employees, but many rural teachers in other states are still underpaid. "If those issues are not resolved, we could see rural teachers in other states follow the example of the striking teachers in West Virginia, where over half of all schools are considered rural," Erin McHenry-Sorber reports for Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.

The issue of rural teacher pay is complex: in W.Va. the state legislature sets a statewide pay scale. Wealthier areas like those near Washington, D.C., can add more to the baseline salary to make their districts more attractive to teachers. But places like McDowell County, the poorest in the state, struggle to find teachers, especially in math and special education. North Carolina has the same problem: the rural teacher shortage is exacerbated by wealthy districts that poach more experienced teachers.

In Pennsylvania, where teacher salary scales are set at the local level instead of the county level, the pay disparity between rural and urban teachers is more dramatic. In the Turkeyfoot Valley Area School District in rural southwestern Penn., the average teacher salary is $36,709, but Lower Merion School District in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb has an average teacher salary of $97,480.

"Highly dependent on local tax revenue, rural school systems in Pennsylvania find themselves unable to compete with urban and suburban districts in terms of teacher pay – not just across the state, but within their own counties," McHenry-Sorber reports. "Unlike countywide systems, poor, rural community school districts in Pennsylvania see no benefits from economic growth in neighboring districts within their county borders."

Rural school districts face three disadvantages in attracting teachers, according to a 2003 study by the Rural School and Community Trust: rural teachers are paid less than other rural professionals like registered nurses or computer programmers, largely rural states pay less than largely urban states, and rural areas pay teachers less than urban areas within the same state, McHenry-Sorber reports.

The study is still relevant today, with the rural teacher shortage reaching "crisis levels" in states like Oklahoma and Arizona. "Numerous states, like West Virginia and Oklahoma, have attempted to deal with the lack of certified teachers through emergency certifications, alternative certification programs and diminished standards for teacher certification," McHenry-Sorber reports.

Ex-con coal baron's bid for W.Va. Senate seat gains traction

Convicted misdemeanant at his campaign kickoff in January
(Associated Press photo by Steve Helber)

Don Blankenship's campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia would have sounded like a pipe dream last year. After all, the former Massey Energy CEO just got out of prison for his role in 2010's Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion that killed 29 men. But "opponents who once dismissed his candidacy now see him as a credible threat in the Trump era, positioned to appeal to many West Virginians’ resentment of elites of any kind," Trip Gabriel reports for The New York Times.

Blankenship' events have drawn protesters, but some in coal country support his claim that he is a former "political prisoner," unfairly targeted by federal prosecutors and safety inspectors. No evidence has been found to back up those claims, but Gabriel notes that Blankenship "is running for office in an era of nationwide voter credulity for conspiracy theories." That dovetails with many West Virginians' belief that the federal government, especially Barack Obama, is to blame for coal's decline, despite experts' belief that a larger factor was cheap, plentiful natural gas that stole coal's prime market, power generation.

West Virginia has a long history of miners vs. mine operators, but once non-union operators began paying union wages, the United Mine Workers union weakened, and when the miners and operators found a common foe in Obama's anti-coal policies, they became allies and operators were seen as job creators. R. Booth Goodwin II, who prosecuted Blankenship as U.S. attorney and then ran for governor unsuccessfully in 2016, told Gabriel: "I have heard people say, 'When Don was in charge, we always worked.' . . . The coal industry is still perpetuating a lie that coal mining is coming back, and it’s going to be just like it was before, when all objective evidence is to the contrary."

Budget deal permanently guarantees health benefits for 23,000 retired coal miners or families

The deal in Congress to fund the government through September includes permanent funding of health benefits for retired coal miners.

About 23,000 former United Mine Workers of America miners or their widows were set to lose their health care and pensions at the end of April, because they had "lost permanent funding for those benefits during the bankruptcy reorganizations of companies like Peabody Energy, Patriot Coal and Alpha Natural Resources," reports Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette-Mail. "Health funds for more than 120,000 total retirees face the same threat down the road," Dylan Brown reported last month for Greenwire.

The health benefits "would be funded through part of an already statutorily mandated transfer of up to $490 million a year in general tax dollars that flow through the federal Abandoned Mine Lands program, as part of the complex formula that provides additional money for the abandoned-mine cleanup program and the UMW benefits plan," Ward reports. "As a budgetary offset . . . the bill extends certain customs user fees on goods that are brought into the United States," starting in 2026.

The federal role in coal miners' benefits stems from a 1946 deal that "helped end a stalemate between the union and the government, which had seized the nation’s mines in response to a strike," Ward notes. UMWA President Cecil E. Roberts said in a statement: "Swift passage of that bill by Congress this week will mean that those senior citizens and their families will finally have the peace of mind about their future that has eluded them for years."

Trump remains silent on expiring benefits for retired coal miners; benefits to expire April 28

David Van Sickle, who has black lung, stands to
lose benefits (NYT photo by Maddie McGarvey)

President Trump has been vocal on his promise to "put our miners back to work" but has remained mum on expiring benefits for retired coal miners, notes Noam Scheiber of The New York Times. One of those miners is David Van Sickle, who at 59 suffers from black-lung disease. Van Sickle, a Trump supporter who heeded doctor's orders to retire two years ago after four decades of mining in Pennsylvania, said of Trump, “He promised to help miners, not just mining companies.”

About 23,000 former United Mine Workers of America miners or their widows will lose their health care and pensions on April 28, unless Congress intervenes through legislation to keep the government funded, Dylan Brown reports for Greenwire. "Health funds for more than 120,000 total retirees face the same threat down the road."

Scheiber reports, "Responsibility for the retirees’ health plans has increasingly shifted to the federal government in recent years, as struggling coal companies have shed their liabilities in bankruptcy court. Congress voted last fall to finance benefits for a large group of retirees for several months, but House and Senate Republican leaders have yet to agree on a longer-term solution."

"The benefits can easily mean the difference between a middle-class retirement and economic hardship, since many retired miners are too young to qualify for Medicare," Scheiber notes. "Others have chronic or debilitating health problems that would require expensive supplemental coverage—currently provided by the retiree plan—even with the Medicare benefit." VanSickle said he "priced out a private insurance plan that would provide roughly comparable benefits for him and his wife, who takes about a dozen separate medications to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The estimates came in at $1,500 to $1,800 per month."

Van Sickle said many retired miners who supported Trump "understood that his promise to revive employment in their industry was a long shot in the face of cheap natural gas," Scheiber reports. "But they believed their wish was a modest one. The price tag for their benefits averages a little under $200 million per year over the next 10 years, which can be partly offset through interest that accrues in a federal fund for reclaiming abandoned mines. Because no new miners would become eligible for the health benefits awarded to this group, the cost would eventually dwindle to zero."

Retired coal miners set to lose benefits, as United Mine Workers of America struggles to stay alive

E&E News graphic: Coal jobs 1995-2015

While President Trump has promised to put coal miners back to work—a promise experts don't expect to happen—thousands of retired miners are in danger of losing health benefits and the future of the United Mine Workers of America hangs in the balance, Dylan Brown reports for Greenwire. On April 28, about 23,000 former UMWA miners or their widows will lose their health care and pensions, "and health funds for more than 120,000 total retirees face the same threat down the road."

The UMWA, which had 500,000 members at its peak in the 1930s, had 67,440 at the end of 2016, with fewer than 8,000 still mining coal, Brown writes. The reason is that most are retired, meaning more people are relying on payouts than paying in. (Unions in U.S. coal mines)

Twenty percent of coal jobs are covered by union contracts, compared to six percent for the overall private sector, Brown writes. "But most major coal companies have no union miners at all. And bankruptcy—which almost all have faced—not only shrank the industry but sheared off hundreds of millions of dollars in obligations to retired miners." UMWA President Cecil Roberts told Brown, "There is no remedy here available to us other than Congress. We're not saying we're going to win, lose or draw here. But we are saying we're going to fight until there is no other place to fight. This really is a life-and-death proposition for us."

In 1946, when negotiations broke down between coal operators and UMWA, President Harry S. Truman "stepped in and nationalized the country's mines," Brown writes. That led to the signing on May 29, 1946, of the National Bituminous [Coal] Wage Agreement, which "mandated a six-day workweek and safety code, but it also created the first miner health and retirement plans. That set a precedent for government-backed benefits that still holds today, the UMWA argues."

Coal began to see a decline after the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, "which tackled acid rain, put a premium on low-sulfur coal at power plants," Brown writes. That led to a shift of production from Appalachia to the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana, and to surface mines, which require fewer miners. "More coal was being mined and burned than ever. In 1999, for the first time, more coal came from west of the Mississippi River than east. Coal from unionized mines took the hit, Roberts said, and today accounts for less than 20 percent of all U.S. coal. The shift cost the UMWA more than 20,000 jobs."

Fear grows about health care benefits, pensions of Appalachian miners from bankrupt coal companies

Labor unions, citizen groups and regulators in financially troubled Appalachian coal regions fear that the downward spiral of the coal industry could lead coal companies "to try to abandon their obligations to fund miners’ pensions and health care benefits and try to escape from their commitments to reclaim mine sites and clean up polluted streams," Ken Ward reports for the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

"Last week, the United Mine Workers union warned that that is exactly what Patriot Coal hopes to do with its proposal to sell certain assets—those without large debts to union benefit funds or more significant long-term pollution liabilities—as part of a restructuring plan being considered in U.S. Bankruptcy Court," Ward writes. "UMW lawyers said the move would give the buyer, Kentucky-based Blackhawk Mining LLC, Patriot’s 'most valuable assets.' Left behind would be less-valuable properties, perhaps without the ability to fund 'significant and unwanted obligations' to reclaim land, pay injured workers, pay retirement and health care and employ miners working under a union contract, the lawyers said."

UMW lawyers said in a court filing opposing Patriot’s proposal: “The losers in this scheme would be the miners who generated profits over the years and the taxpayers of the state of West Virginia, the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the United States, who ultimately pay for the reclamation of the environment and the income replacement for injured and breathless miners."

Alpha Natural Resources, which last week filed for bankruptcy, "provided a long list of the sorts of 'legacy liabilities' that coal producers face: more than $680 million in reclamation obligations; $160 million in water-treatment costs; more than $158 million in black lung benefits; and $600 million of debt to the UMW’s pension plan," Ward writes. "In a vivid illustration of the liabilities that coal companies can leave behind, Alpha said reclamation and worker liabilities for 80 mines it has closed since 2011 already amount to more than $175 million a year."

"While Alpha officials have not yet announced their specific reorganization plans and said in court filings that they are 'not commencing an immediate sale process for their assets,' UMW President Cecil Roberts cautioned in a prepared statement issued the day of the bankruptcy filing that he expects an effort to 'pay off the big banks and other Wall Street investors at the expense of workers, retirees and their communities,'" Ward writes.