May 7, 2025 - Four coal miners have sued their former employer, alleging that their termination from a Buchanan County mine last month violated a federal law that requires companies to provide advance notice of plant closings and mass layoffs.

The suit was filed April 30 against Buchanan Minerals LLC in U.S. District Court in Abingdon by Joshua McCoy, Joey Hill, Timothy Vance and William Stiltner. Buchanan Minerals is a subsidiary of Coronado Coal, which owns the Buchanan mining complex near Oakwood and is headquartered in Beckley, West Virginia.

A total of 140 employees were affected by the April 28 terminations, according to the suit, which is a proposed class action that seeks to represent all others who are “similarly situated.” The judge presiding over the case will decide whether the case becomes a class action.

The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, commonly known as the WARN Act, protects employees by requiring advance notice of plant closings and mass layoffs. It requires employers with 100 or more employees to provide at least 60 calendar days’ written notice before a plant closing or mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees.

Coronado officials did not reply to a phone call and emails about either the layoffs or the lawsuit.

As of Tuesday afternoon, no WARN Act notice had been filed by the company, according to the Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement’s website.

A changing market for met coal

Buchanan Mine No. 1 is an underground mine that is the largest in Virginia. In 2024, it produced a total of 3.87 million tons of metallurgical coal, which was the most of any Virginia coal mine and 38.8% of the total mined in the state for the year, according to data from the Virginia Department of Energy. So-called met coal is used to make steel and is the bulk of what’s now being produced in Virginia.

About 75% of the met coal produced in Virginia is exported to other countries, including India, China, Brazil, Japan and the Netherlands, according to Ben Beakes, president of the Metallurgical Coal Producers Association, whose seven producing members include Coronado.

No reason has been given for the layoffs, but they come as the met coal industry has slowed after historic demand for steel following the COVID-19 pandemic. Prices and demand have come down or been static in recent months, Beakes said. From 2023 to 2024, “just to compare apples to apples, we saw about a 16.6% decrease in the average United States export price per ton,” he added.

President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and the impact on met coal prices and demand have also caused concern and uncertainty in the industry in recent months. However, Beakes said there was a recent uptick in index prices for the first time in a few months, which he believes is a sign that the market may settle and rebound. 

Coronado had 666 employees in 2024, when a total of 2,197 miners were working in Virginia coal mines, according to VDOE.

Coronado is part of Coronado Global Resources, an international producer of metallurgical coal with U.S. operations in Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, as well as operations in Queensland, Australia.

In 2022, the company announced it was investing $169 million in an expansion of the Buchanan complex that would create 181 jobs. The company received a $3.52 million grant from the governor’s Commonwealth Opportunity Fund for the project.

To date, the company has received $1 million of the grant, according to Pryor Green, managing director of communications for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. Of the total amount, $2.8 million was for offsite road improvements, with a $1 million payment released once the company invested at least $9.5 million and hired 95 workers. The company met those thresholds and the money was released in November 2024.

The $1.8 million remaining for road improvements was never awarded because the company met the investment requirement but fell short with maintaining the jobs created, Green said.

The remaining $725,000 is to be released at the end of the four-year performance period and could be pro-rated for any shortage of investment or jobs. It could still go to the company, Green said Tuesday.

Mine changes amounted to ‘plant closure,’ lawsuit claims

According to the former employees’ complaint, the company operated six continuous miner units and two longwall units at its Buchanan County mine. On April 28, the company decided to cease operations of four continuous miner units, which resulted in the immediate loss of jobs, the lawsuit states.

Continuous miners and longwall mining increased speed and efficiency in the mines. The continuous miner removes coal from the mine face and loads it onto conveyors or shuttle cars. Longwall mining does the same job, mining a long wall of coal in a single slice and loading the coal onto a conveyor.

The lawsuit contends that each unit is an operating unit of the mine, and that by shutting down multiple sections and terminating employees, the company ordered a “plant closure” under the WARN Act.

Those who were terminated were separated from work, without cause, for a period that will exceed six months, and letting them go without warning caused substantial economic and other harm, according to the lawsuit.

In addition to asking that the lawsuit be certified as a class action, the former miners are seeking a jury trial, all relief available under the WARN Act, including back pay and statutory damages, and all litigation costs, including attorney and expert fees.

The layoffs came a little more than two months after Buchanan County was hit by major flooding that damaged and destroyed a number of homes and businesses and led to a federal disaster declaration. Particularly hard hit was the nearby community of Hurley.