US Bankruptcy Judge Kathy Surratt-States granted the company permission to pay the bonuses despite vehement opposition from the United Mine Workers of America which claimed the payments wrongly benefited corporate insiders.

The company said it needed to provide the bonuses to prevent it from losing key salaried officials before it emerged from bankruptcy, to which Surratt-States agreed.

“The facts remain that certain key personnel perform duties that are more integral to the viability of the organization and such individuals are generally compensated at higher levels,” Surratt-States said in her opinion.

When the company filed for the approval on February 13 UMWA president Cecil E Roberts said the bonus proposal showed "callous disregard" for union-represented workers and retirees.

“This is nothing more than a finger in the eye of those retirees and widows, as well as the active workers who are looking at the destruction of decades of collective bargaining improvements,” he said.

“These workers put their health on the line and put their lives on the line every single day to produce coal.”

Patriot didn’t disclose who would be paid under the plans but said in a February statement that the company's chief executive officer and executive team would not benefit.

"The purpose of these plans is to motivate key employees to remain with Patriot and to achieve financial and operating performance goals that are essential to the company becoming viable through reorganization," Patriot stated.

"A successful reorganization is critical to Patriot's survival and to saving 4000 jobs."

UMWA stated in a March court hearing that it was strongly opposed to the plan.

“The debtors have proposed to grant massive bonuses to corporate insiders – as well as other employees – in two programs, one of which is explicitly a retention bonus and the other, while nominally an incentive, is in reality a thinly disguised retention bonus,” UMWA said.

“At the last minute, Patriot has also attempted to circumvent [laws] by re-characterizing retention bonus payments to seven insiders as incentive payments.

“The combined plans seek to give management almost 7 million dollars in bonus payments at a time when Patriot claims it is in dire need of concessions from its miners.”

Surratt-States rejected those claims on Thursday, saying the bonus programs complied with federal law.

Patriot mines for coal in West Virginia and Kentucky and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last July.

The company said it employed nearly 4000 people, with about 1700 being union members.

Surratt-States has until May 29 to rule judgment in Patriot’s Chapter 11 case.

If no cuts were taken, Patriot said, it would likely be forced to liquidate.

The bankruptcy case is In Re: Patriot Coal Corp, US Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of Missouri, no 12-51502.