ST. LOUIS — The nation’s biggest miners’ union and Patriot Coal said on Monday that they had reached a potential settlement that the union said would ease the severity of wage and benefit cuts a bankruptcy judge had allowed the company to impose.

The United Mine Workers of America did not publicly reveal details of the deal, pending a vote Friday by about 1,800 current or laid-off Patriot workers in West Virginia and Kentucky eligible to cast ballots. Patriot also did not release the terms.

But the union said the deal was a significant improvement from the cuts Patriot enacted on July 1, a little more than a month after the federal bankruptcy judge in Missouri, Kathy A. Surratt-States, allowed the company to abandon its collective bargaining agreements with the mine workers.

“We have been able to restore, or at least improve upon, many of the most drastic changes that the judge ordered, including in the area of wages, health care benefits, paid time off, pensions and more,” Cecil Roberts, the union’s president, said in a statement. “In addition, we have negotiated a mechanism that will allow retiree health care benefits to continue.”

Bennett K. Hatfield, Patriot’s president and chief executive, said in a separate statement that the “successful conclusion of a difficult negotiation” helped the company avoid being dissolved.

“Both parties want to preserve jobs and protect health care benefits for retirees by keeping Patriot on track for reorganization — and not liquidation,” Mr. Hatfield said. “We appreciate the cooperation of the U.M.W.A. leadership and the sacrifices of all of our employees and retirees as we work to restore Patriot to viability.”

Patriot, based in St. Louis, said it would seek the bankruptcy court’s authorization to enter into the agreement.

Last month, Patriot said without elaborating that it had imposed less severe wage and benefit cuts on its miners than it could have under Judge Surratt-States’s ruling, and that it would keep retired workers’ health plans unchanged for two months as negotiations with the union pressed on.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/business/patriot-coal-and-union-reach-a-deal-on-cutbacks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss