MINERS PROTESTS IN EAST AND WEST UKRAINE

Ukraine Solidarity Campaign has received fresh reports from the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU) of miners protests in both Western and in Ukraine, in Volyn in West Ukraine and in the Eastern Donestk Regions .

This morning,(9 October) labour collectives of mines of State Enterprise ‘Volynvuhillia’ have started a protest action at the international check-point ‘Yahodyn’. Before that, the miners of the mines “Buzhanska” and “Novovolinskaya” No. 9 were refusing to go down the mine for almost a week, demanding to pay off wage arrears.

The reasons for the protest are the non-payment of salaries and the robbery of coal mines with the efforts of “curators”. Under the pressure of miners, who were refusing to go down the mine during the previous week, the Ministry of Energy and the Coal Industry managed to pay salaries for July and only to the underground workers. And employees of the non-industrial group of enterprise had not been paid salaries for July!”, – wrote the head of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine Mikhaylo Volynets on his Facebook page.

At the same time, more than 40 coal miners are staying underground in the mine “Capitalna” of the State Enterprise “Myrnohradvugillya”. They had been paid only 10% of salaries for August. In general, miners of state enterprise received only 5% of monthly salaries for August.