Here’s the latest from the United Mine Workers of America, in response to the recent move by Patriot Coal to try to break its union contract:

The language of the court documents filed by Patriot Coal asking for the elimination of the company’s collective bargaining agreement and its pension obligations would seem to indicate that the UMWA and its members are responsible for the company’s present predicament and that we are holding up a resolution to this bankruptcy.

Nothing could be further from the truth. No group of people have made more sacrifices to get Patriot Coal through the last couple of years than active and retired UMWA members. They have given up millions in wages and benefits, including retiree health care benefits that are a matter of life and death for thousands of them.

It is outrageous for Patriot and Blackhawk to hold up these miners and retirees as the reason this company will or won’t fail. What we are seeing here is an attempt to hand over yet more millions to a handful of Wall Street financiers at the expense of working and retired coal miners in Marion, Boone and Logan counties in West Virginia.

We have never said this process is at an end or that we have reached some sort of impasse. We have remained ready up to now to meet Patriot and their masters at Blackhawk halfway. But if that’s not possible, we are prepared to meet them head-on.