Last Tuesday residents of Dnipropetrovsk met a 4,000-strong column of Western Donbas miners entering the city with the traditional Ukrainian bread-and-salt sign of welcome. The hunger marchers, setting off from Pervomaisk and on through Ternivka and Pavlohrad, covered some 170 kilometers in four and a half days. En route the column was joined by delegates from all 11 pits of the Pavlohradvuhillia holding company.
The protesters’ main demands are the payment of Hr 84 million in back wages, changes in the system of payments, bringing wages and pensions back to the 1990 level, granting the coal industry the basic industry status, and stopping coal purchases abroad.
The column stopped in front of the building of Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration, knocking helmets together and chanting “Wages!” The marchers demanded a meeting with the administration and the government commission that had been deliberating the situation for the past 24 hours. During the meeting Volodymyr Radchenko, Acting Minister of Coal Industry, declared that it was practically impossible at the moment to pay them a monthly wage before May 25 and the next one sometime in June. As for the arrears, the commission came to Dnipropetrovsk on Premier Pustovoitenko’s instructions and could only “submit recommendations to the Cabinet of Ministers.” He informed the miners that purchases of coal abroad had been halted and that Parliament would be approached about increasing subsidies for the industry.
The Third Congress of the Independent Miners’ Union of Ukraine began May 20. Obviously, the emphasis will be not so much on the reports of the audit and credentials committees as on how to coordinate the efforts of 120,000 miners on strike.
Characteristically, the strike’s epicenter is now in Dnipropetrovsk, rather than the traditional coal areas of Donetsk and Luhansk. There are reasons to believe that decisions on the forms and methods of struggle will not be made by the leaders of independent unions, and that union dues are not likely to cover the expenses involved in transportation, accommodation, food, and medical services for the strikers.
There are also facts corroborating this assumption. Apart from a telegram addressed to the Ukrainian political leadership, the miners sent a letter to Pavlo Lazarenko. This message remained in an altogether different vein. Mr. Lazarenko is asked to kindly defend the miners’ interests in Parliament and is assured that the miners will support his every initiative “aimed at the rebirth of Ukraine as a powerful state.” It is interesting to note that the Lazarenko-affiliated television channel 11 ran several times within the same 24 hours a video episode in which the Hromada leader blames the Cabinet for everything going on.
Hromada’s response to the miners’ letter was even more interesting, the more so that it came even before the letter did. The President and the government were guilty and the Cabinet had to make an immediate report.
The western Donbas miners’ strike committee resolved to continue the march of protest to Kyiv Sunday. Meanwhile in Kyiv, delegates of the Independent Miners’ Union picketed the Cabinet building.
Hard as it tried the government failed to isolate Ukraine’s largest miners’ union, the Coal Industry Workers, from the action of protest. CIW Presidium resolved May 27 to launch a continuous protest campaign, picketing the Presidential Administration, reports UNIAN. On its eve, after Premier Pustovoitenko promised to purchase 7.5 million tons of coal at budget expense, the CIW leader advised the Premier that his union “controls the situation at the miners’ collectives and can manage it at will.”
Then Verkhovna Rada stepped in. After hearing Vice Premier Anatoly Holubchenko’s report on talks with the miners, the People’s Deputies instructed the Cabinet and Chief Tax Inspectorate to carry out inspections at mining enterprises and examine their managers’ personal incomes.
The miners’ rebellion may be used for political ends. Mr. Pustovoitenko declared that “events unfolding at Verkhovna Rada and the processes underway in Dnipropetrovsk look very much alike.” He further stated that it is a “political game being played by those guilty of transgressions in the gas sector.”
Meanwhile, Minister of Coal Industry Stanislav Yanko suffered a heart attack after meeting with the dead miners’ widows.
Economics Department of The Day comments:
Extraction efficiency in April was 19.5 tons of coal per miner (instead of the planned 17.9), i.e., a 9.6% increment. Last year it was 3.7%. The Ministry of Coal Industry informed The Day, however, that Hr 2.5 billion worth of debt to the miners continues to increase because the wages being paid are less than are actually accrued.
Meanwhile, First Deputy Minister Volodymyr Radchenko is in Donetsk. Viktor Derzhak, Chairman of the Central Committee of the National Miners’ Union, is in Pavlohrad. Miners are persuaded not to go on strike because if they do the extraction rate will drop. Losses due to strikes since the start of the year are 676,000 tons, 344 tons more than in the same period last year.
Photo:
Panic in the government: the miners come







