CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is millions of dollars behind on health insurance payments for their employees. financially troubled hotelwhich puts workers’ insurance coverage at risk, even though the US Senate candidate claims otherwise, a union representative said on Friday.
“The offenses are facts, tangible and documented,” said Peter Bostic, chairman of the union council at The Greenbrier, the historic resort owned by Justice’s family.
In a press conference on Thursday, Justice dismissed concerns about at least $2.4 million in overdue payments to the insurer, saying the payments were made “regularly” and there was “no possibility” that workers would lose their insurance coverage.
But on Friday, Bostic said the situation was by no means resolved.
“We continue to demand that the Greenbriers meet their contractual obligations and remain hopeful that an agreement between the ANHF and The Greenbriers will be reached to ensure that services continue into the future,” he said in a statement.
Justice’s remarks came on the same day that the Republican’s family announced that they reached an agreement with a debt collection agency to prevent the Greenbrier Hotel, which has hosted presidents, royalty and members of Congress, from being foreclosed on due to unpaid debts. The Greenbrier was scheduled to be auctioned on August 27 after Beltway Capital defaulted on a long-standing loan on the Justice Hotel after buying the hotel from JPMorgan Chase in July.
Bostic said Friday that in light of the auction’s cancellation, the Amalgamated National Health Fund has agreed to continue offering health insurance to union employees at The Greenbrier through the end of the month while it works on a settlement with the judges.
Earlier this week, just before the auction, about 400 employees of The Greenbrier hotel received a notice from an attorney for health care provider Amalgamated National Health Fund stating that they would lose on the day of the auction if the Justice family did not pay the $2.4 million in outstanding contributions.
The Justice family has not paid contributions to its employees’ health insurance plan for four months, and $1.2 million more in contributions are due soon, according to a letter the board received from Ronald Richman, an attorney with the firm Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, which is representing the fund.
The letter also said, according to union officials, that some contributions were deducted from employees’ salaries but never transferred to the fund.
Justice told reporters at a press conference on Thursday that “insurance payments have been made and have been made on a regular basis.”
“It is impossible that the great union members at The Greenbrier should be without insurance,” he said. “It is completely impossible.”
Justice began his first of two terms as governor in 2017 after buying the Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in 2009. The 710-room hotel hosted a PGA Tour golf tournament from 2010 to 2019 and has hosted NFL teams for training camps and practices. A once-secret 10,080-square-foot underground bunker built for Congress at the Greenbrier during the Cold War in case of a nuclear attack now offers tours.
The auction, which was to take place in a courthouse in the small town of Lewisburg, was for 60.5 acres of land, including the hotel and parking lot.
The Republican said when he bought the Greenbrier, employee benefits were “slashed to the bare minimum” and he has restored them. He said if the hotel had been foreclosed on, “there would have been a bloodbath and devastation for the great people of the Greenbrier such as you can’t imagine,” referring to the jobs that may have been lost.
“What would have happened to those employees if we had just given up?” he asked. “I mean, it’s great to have health insurance, but if you don’t have a job, that would be pretty damn hard, right?”
Justice is running for U.S. Senate against Democrat Glenn Elliott, a former mayor of Wheeling. Justice, who owns dozens of businesses and whose net worth was estimated by Forbes magazine at $513 million in 2021, was indicted in Court proceedings of millions in late payments for debts of the family business and fines for unsafe working conditions in its coal mines.
