Big Horn Coal Company v. Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, United States Department of Labor, Homer F. Alley, Claimant-Respondent

LOGAN, Circuit Judge.

In January 1976, claimant-respondent Homer F. Alley retired from his employment with the petitioner Big Horn Coal Company. At the time, he had worked for the company for thirty years, spending most of that time as a heavy equipment operator in a strip mine operation. The last year of his employment, Alley “bid down” (requested lower paying and less taxing work) to a position as an oiler. Since his retirement from active coal mining, Alley has been employed as an international representative for the United Mine Workers Union District 15. This is a paid position, at which…