CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is millions of dollars behind on payments to the health insurance plan for employees at their financially troubled hotel, jeopardizing workers’ insurance coverage despite the U.S. Senate candidate’s claims to the contrary, a union official said 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 briefing on Thursday, Justice dismissed concerns about at least $2.4 million in overdue payments to insurer Amalgamated National Health Fund, saying the payments were made “regularly” and there was “no possibility” that workers would lose their coverage.
But on Friday, Bostic said the situation was by no means resolved.
“We continue to demand that The Greenbrier meet its overdue contractual obligations and remain hopeful for an agreement between the ANHF and The Greenbrier to ensure continued services in the future,” he said in a statement.
Justice’s comments came the same day the Republican’s family announced it had reached a settlement with a debt collection agency to prevent The Greenbrier hotel, which has hosted presidents, royals and members of Congress, from being foreclosed on over unpaid debts. The hotel was scheduled to be auctioned on Aug. 27 after Beltway Capital defaulted on a long-standing loan on the Justice hotel after the hotel was purchased by 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.
Last week, as the auction date approached, about 400 employees of The Greenbrier hotel received a notice from an attorney for the Amalgamated National Health Fund saying they would lose their insurance coverage on the day of the auction if the Justice family did not pay the $2.4 million in outstanding premiums.
The Justice family has not paid into 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 plan.
The letter also said that some contributions had been deducted from employees’ salaries but never transferred to the fund, which worried union officials.
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 10,000-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 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, has been accused in lawsuits of late paying millions in debts owed by the family business and fines for unsafe working conditions at its coal mines.
FILE – West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice speaks at an election party at the Governor’s Mansion in Charleston, West Virginia, May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, File)