Eyewitness News is there as Droves of Tri-state United Mine Workers load a bus to St. Louis in what they say is a fight for the well-being of the future of their families. Peabody Coal Company created Patriot Coal which eventually went into bankruptcy and miners say this is all to avoid paying long-term benefits to employees. So they went to St. Louis to demonstrate outside Wednesday's bankruptcy hearing. These miners are on a mission. "I want to go to St. Louis to see what I can do to help keep our insurance" says Miner William Harris who worked almost 40 years at River Queen Mine in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. A mission they say is for the safety and security of their loved ones. "We're talking about my mother who is on the insurance because my dad had it...yeah my family uses it" Robert Coppage tells us, a miner for 34 years, still working in Uniontown, Kentucky. Harris says "Me and my wife...I'm 80 and we're taking alot of medicare and stuff and we've had good insurance so far." Everyone on this bus does or used to work for Peabody Coal, not Patriot. They say all the decades they've put into these mines is worth proper and continuous benefits. "I worked all my life...most of my life for you and we've made them alot of money and I don't think its right for them to take our insurance away" Harris explains. Patriot calls its pension and health care programs "unsustainable legacies." But Coppage regardless of financial troubles by the coal company, a promise is a promise, "Every three years of wherever we'd sign a contract they always said this is part of your contract and now all of a sudden they say they can't pay it." Uncertain futures aside, everyone on this bus is in the same battle. "This is the second group that's gone and there will be more, that's the reason its United Mine Workers because we're all together" The bankruptcy affects more than 20 thousand retirees and dependents nationwide. Buses carrying miners from Central City and Hartford Kentucky as well as Sullivan Indiana also made the trip to St. Louis.
