The Greenbrier Hotel says there will be no interruptions in healthcare coverage for union employees and their families.
“The Greenbrier cares about its team members as part of the family, and these great people take world-class care of guests from around the world. They are an essential part of The Greenbrier experience and make us proud every day,” representatives of The Greenbrier Hotel Corporation said in a written statement.
The Greenbrier Hotel is owned by Gov. Jim Justice and his family. The governor addressed the situation today at a statewide news briefing in response to a MetroNews question. Justice refuted concerns about whether payments for the employee share of the cost had been collected and then not passed along.
“We get absolutely just running with the winds and we make an awful lot of assertions that dollars were taken from Edith and not turned in to the healthcare fund, and it’s so false it’s off the chart,” he said. “The healthcare is absolutely intact.”
He said the worst part of the situation that arose the past couple of weeks is “the worries of the employees. You know, these are good people.”
The hotel put out the statement today after about a week of turmoil and back-and-forth over the health benefits coverage. Unions representing workers had said the coverage was set to run out at the end of the month, which would have been this Saturday.
The Greenbrier Council of Labor Unions, representing workers, put out a statement describing being “pleased and relieved” that a settlement agreement has been reached.
“We are hopeful that The Greenbrier will honor all commitments and contractual obligations moving forward so that our Members are not forced to endure any uncertainties in the future,” stated Peter Bostic, chairman of The Greenbrier Council of Labor Unions.
“Our members’ hard work and dedication is what truly makes The Greenbrier the destination that it is renowned for.”
Attorneys for the Amalgamated National Health Fund had said coverage would lapse if an agreement couldn’t be reached by the end of this month.
The Health Fund had said the owners were delinquent on $2.4 million in health premium contributions, with another $1.2 million in premiums soon due.
The insurance company alleged The Greenbrier collected premiums from employees but did not pass the money along. The health insurance payments collected from employees of The Greenbrier but not remitted to their insurance company totaled $612,000, according to Bostic of the Greenbrier Council of Labor Unions.
The statement from the union today expressed optimism that the latest agreement will secure members’ healthcare benefits into the future “and address prior delinquencies.”
The statement from The Greenbrier again disputed that any delinquencies ever existed.
“The employee contributions that were withheld from employees’ paychecks were always timely remitted to the Health Fund, and not a single time was a penny of those contributions used for any purpose other than funding the healthcare coverage of The Greenbrier employees,” according to The Greenbrier statement.
Justice gained goodwill and steps toward statewide name recognition when he bought The Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in spring of 2009. Prior to that, the resort had been owned by CSX. Justice, a two-term governor, is now a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and is considered the frontrunner because of his broad name identification and West Virginia’s recent voting trends.
Today’s statement said the Justices have made employee benefits at the resort a priority.
“The Greenbrier values its employees greatly, and from the very beginning, when Governor Justice bought the resort out of bankruptcy, he immediately (within hours) restored benefits that employees had been forced to negotiate away,” according to The Greenbrier statement.
“A union contract that took 6 months to negotiate with CSX (prior to the Justice purchase) and obtained substantial concessions from the employees — including stripping away, and in many cases completely removing, health benefits to these hard-working employees — was replaced by the Justice family as its first priority. The Greenbrier cares about its team members as part of the family, and these great people take world-class care of guests from around the world. They are an essential part of The Greenbrier experience and make us proud every day.”
Justice, in his comments at today’s administration briefing, said he hates the stress that employees have been going through “and surely to goodness I hate the union coming out and sending out a letter basically saying that we had withheld Toby and Edith’s money, which was completely false and everything. But I’m glad we got it to where we can put it to bed, so we can move forward.”