What do coal miners need?
As instructed by the prime minister, Ukraine’s Ministry of Coal Industry adopted a resolution increasing base wage rates for workers at coal mining enterprises, proceeding from the minimum wage of 400 hryvnias. The required sum amounts to some two million hryvnias a year. The designated sources of financing are the central budget and enterprises’ own funds. This issue was deliberated by a special coal ministry board meeting a couple of weeks ago, because this pay increase must be accompanied by a corresponding increase in productivity.
Over 200,000 people are employed in coal mining enterprises under the ministry’s jurisdiction, and they are paid salaries ranging from 205 to 375 hryvnias. Most workers (72.5 percent) earn salaries calculated according to the average base rate pegged to the minimum wage of 262 hryvnias a month. At the same time the average pay at coal mining enterprises is 1,555 hryvnias, 2,600 for miners handling breakage faces, and over 2,500 for drift miners. In view of the difficult financial state of most enterprises in the mining industry, the ministry meeting focused on finding ways to increase wages and cover additional expenses involved in the payment of taxes.
The board meeting instructed the directors general of the state- run coal mining enterprises and coal mines under the ministry’s corporate supervision to formulate and implement appropriate tasks. Executives on all levels will assume personal responsibility for their fulfillment. Measures to upgrade wage rate fixing will be adopted with the involvement of all pertinent services. Commissions on balance sheets and non- productive expenses will have to resume functioning in full.
Coal mining enterprises that can afford it are recommended to introduce new increased base wage rates ahead of schedule. As a result, the average pay according to the new rates will total 1,954 hryvnias, 3,170 for breakage face, and 3,790 for drift miners.
The meeting paid special attention to miners’ health care. It was noted that medical and sanitary facilities in the coal industry have been showing an increasingly inadequate performance over the past several years and that this is one of the causes of the critical situation with respect to miners’ occupational and other diseases. Requirements set forth in the Law on Mining, specifically that miners must undergo rehabilitation and health-restoring treatment after every shift, are not being observed. Consequently, every year several thousand miners become disabled and several hundred die of occupational diseases and injuries. The level of temporary disability in the coal industry is highest in Ukraine.
The board meeting also noted that the Ministry of Coal Industry has repeatedly submitted proposals on solutions to the problems of medical and social protection of miners on the state level. To implement this initiative the target-oriented sectoral program “Protection of Miners’ Health” was developed and twice submitted to the central budget bill, but the industry has received no funds for its implementation. The program’s current version was drafted in collaboration with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health, taking into account the strategic role of the coal industry in Ukraine’s energy security. It is aimed at overcoming the above-mentioned negative consequences and includes measures aimed at ensuring medical and social protection of miners and families whose breadwinners were killed on the job.
This program was publicly discussed on the pages of the journal Okhorona pratsi (Labor Protection) and by coal miners’ trade unions. Its implementation will help lower the overall level of illness among miners, disability, and death rates, liquidate economic losses stemming from inadequate medical and sanitary service, introduce new collective and individual protection measures, step up work aimed at restoring miners’ health, and lessen social tensions on miners’ production teams. The board meeting adopted a draft concept of this program and will submit it to the Cabinet of Ministers.
