In his lawsuit filed in December at the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Roanoke, Steve Niece said that Southern Coal and affiliate A&G Coal terminated about 300 miners, himself included, at the Job 21 mine in June, according to local newspaper the Roanoke Times.

Neither the 60 days notice nor 60 days of pay, one of which is required under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, were received.

Niece is seeking the pay and benefits and has asked the court to declare his case a class action suit to open it up to his former co-workers.

It is the second such lawsuit filed against Southern.

In July, four miners from its Nine Mile Mining group entered a complaint that they were furloughed in May from the Wide County complex without the proper WARN notice.

Parent company Justice’s general counsel of litigation and risk management A J Dudley told the Times that officials had not yet seen the suit documentation.

However, he said, Niece was requested to participate on an August conference call and a letter to return to work but the producer did not receive a reply.

Southern made announcements in August and September that it was calling crews back to work in two states after the wave of lay-offs earlier this year.

Justice, owned by business magnate Jim Justice, operates mines in Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.