UPDATED: Employees clarify that Greenbrier insurance remains delinquent, will end Aug 31 unless paid
By Stephen Baldwin, RealWV
A day after Governor Jim Justice, who also owns The Greenbrier Hotel, pushed back on questions about employee health care in a press briefing, his employees released a statement.
”I’ll promise you to the good Lord above,” said Justice yesterday, “that insurance payments have been made and were being made on a regular basis just like we’ve done in the past in many ways.”
In a statement released this afternoon to RealWV, Peter Bostic (Chairperson of the Greenbrier Central Labor Unions) pushed back against that claim. He said that payments remain delinquent as they have been for months and employee health care premiums will end if payments are not made by the end of the month.
“The delinquencies are factual, tangible, and documented,” he says. “We continue to demand that the Greenbriers’ delinquent contractual obligations be met and remain hopeful that an agreement will be reached…in the near future.”
Employee health care was set to end August 27 according to a previous letter this week. That date coincided with a planned auction of the famed hotel. But after yesterday’s announcement from the Justice Companies that they reached a deal to pay Beltway Capital what they were due in lieu of an auction, the Amalgamated Health Care Fund which covers employees now is giving Justice Companies until August 31 to pay several million dollars currently overdue.
“The Greenbrier Hotel Corporation is four months delinquent in its contributions to the Health Fund, owing approximately $2.4 million in delinquent contributions with an additional $1.2 million in contributions currently, or soon to be due and owing,” says a letter from Ronald Richman, attorney with Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP representing the Amalgamated National Health Fund, addressed to The Greenbrier Hotel.
The letter further states, “The Greenbrier’s Delinquent Contributions include contributions that were deducted from employees’ pay but not remitted to the Health Fund.”
Full story from Monday on employee health care at The Greenbrier being in jeopardy.
Late Friday evening, The Greenbrier released an additional statement in response:
“The Greenbrier Hotel wants to make absolutely clear that without exception ever penny of money collected from our nearly 2,000 employees for health care coverage has been timely paid to either the union health care fund or the non-union health care provider.”
“The Greenbrier’s management and accounting staff monitor and make payments for the health care. Governor Jim Justice has never been consulted, nor has he directed any of these payments since 2017.”
“The Greenbrier is very proud to carry on the tradition as “America’s Resort” and values greatly the contributions of its employees. Many of its Team Members have worked at The Greenbrier for decades and count on it to provide for their families in our community.”
“To demonstrate the payments of our employee’s withholdings for health care, we have provided this information to the union health care fund today. We want each and every Team Member to know, as always, that with their help, we will do our very best to ensure that this resort delivers an incredible experience to its guests for many years to come.”
Stay tuned to RealWV for updates on this developing story.
