MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — The president of the United Mine Workers of America and nine other union members have been arrested in a protest in St. Louis.
They had been demonstrating outside 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.
Peabody issued a statement saying it has "lived up to its obligations and continues to do so."
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