"Two presidents and Congress have promised retired coal miners health care for life and it is a promise we expect to be kept," said Roberts in an official union statement. "UMWA members are tired of having to constantly hold Congress's feet to the fire to collect what we are due."

The 1992 Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act, or Coal Act, was established to shore up depleted funds needed to cover miners' lifetime health benefits. All companies that signed a UMWA contract after 1974 are required to pay lifetime health benefits to retirees and their spouses.

Since passage of the 1992 legislation, there have been more than 60 challenges to the law.

In recent years the union fund has been dealt blows by a handful of court rulings exempting companies from paying into the fund. Some 70,000 retired miners and their families are covered by the union-administered Combined Benefit Fund, set up under the Coal Act.

Mine workers and their union face assaults by the bosses, the government, and the courts. Closures of union mines, attacks on health care and other benefits, and expansion of nonunion operations have decimated the union membership and resulted in harsh conditions for workers in a growing number of coal operations.

The Retiree Leadership Committee was formed in August 1999 to press forward a fight around health care and other issues facing union members. Last fall thousands of UMWA members and their families attended a series of mass meetings to defend their past gains.

Roberts said the meeting in Washington would discuss "a full-blown lobbying campaign to secure Coal Act funding permanently." The statement added that the "union will encourage members to continue their letter writing and e-mail campaign and to attend rallies being planned to publicize the issue."  
 
 
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