Coal Miners Urge Manchin to Rethink Opposition to Spending Bill

America’s biggest coal mining union is calling on West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin to reconsider his opposition to President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion social and climate spending bill.

The legislation includes several provisions that would aid coal workers, including extension of a fee that helps fund benefits for workers suffering from black lung and tax incentives that would encourage manufactures to build facilities in coal fields and to employ out-of-work miners, said United Mine Workers of America International President Cecil Roberts in a statement. For the first time, the bill would also penalize employers that deny workers their rights to form a union, Roberts said.