This will be to cover spot market deals. The miners believe Peabody wants to mine the coal until enough is stockpiled, then run the preparation plant to wash the coal. With only one seniority list, the company could move underground miners to the preparation plant, needing less workers. The Marissa mine lost its biggest customer, the Illinois Power Co., which cited the high sulfur contained in the coal as the reason. The power company refused to install scrubbers at its Baldwin and Hennepin, Illinois, power plants that burned the coal from Marissa.
Scrubbers remove the polluting sulfur dioxide emissions from the coal.
Peabody said it would be providing low-sulfur coal to the power company from another mine in Wyoming. There are 350 members of UMWA Local 2412 at the underground mine and 50 members of Local 1148 at the preparation plant. The Marissa mine was opened in 1979 and today is the last Peabody mine in Illinois organized by the United Mine Workers. Peabody has been closing UMWA-organized mines and acquiring a majority control in the Black Beauty mining operation. All but one Black Beauty mine in southeastern Illinois and southern Indiana are nonunion.