“A starving miner is a shame for Ukraine”

The miners were calling for an amendment of the state budget for 2015, so that it envisaged allocation of funds for the work of coal mining.

In the morning of January 28 a column of miners in orange hard hats set out to the building of the government. Near the Cabinet of Ministers the miners from Donetsk, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Volyn oblasts whistled, shouted “Shame on you!” and rattled with their hats. One miner was wearing a white band with an inscription “A starving miner is a shame for Ukraine!” The miners had placards that read: “The state without coal – people without electricity,” “Budget 2015 will ruin the branch,” and “Invest into Ukrainian coal mining!”

The miners are outraged by the fact that for the first time in Ukraine’s independence the state budget does not allocate any funds to pay salaries for the miners and for the development of coal mining enterprises. At the same time money will be allotted to shut down the mines. Some social guaranties for the employees and pensioners of the branch, in particular, the preferential taxation for underground workers, have been abolished. Apart from that, the payment arrears in companies overcome 600 million hryvnias and they are growing.

“Without subsidies the mines will shut down. We have received an instruction to close our mines,” the participant of the picket Oleksandr Malieiev from Dzerzhynsk, Donetsk oblast, asserts, “As a result of this situation our town risks dying out. Our population is 100,000. The four mines that are operating are the town forming. If we close all the mines, 100,000 people will be left without maintenance.”

Dzerzhynsk is located on the territory which is under control of Ukrainian government. Some miners have not received wages for six months; the mines are not working, just being maintained in working condition. “Nearly all people are on unpaid leaves,” Oleksandr Malieiev notes, “We have gone to Kyiv about five times, to no avail. We have sent letters to the president, the prime minister, and the government. They have received the letters, but they are not responding.”

The miners demand that the government amend the state budget for 2015, so that it included expenditures for maintaining of mining companies, their technical re-equipment, and occupational safety and health. The trade union of coal miners of Ukraine has calculated that about six billion hryvnias are needed for this. They are also calling to bring back social security for the employees and pensioners of the branch which have existed before December 2014 and pay in time for the consumed coal production and electricity.

“We are not working, which is why we have come here,” a miner from Dzerzhynsk, Anatolii says, “We need provision. This is a usual formula: equipment and wages.”