KIEV–Some 10,000 miners are taking part in a protest rally in the city of Chervonohrad in western Ukraine’s Lviv Region, and all seven mines of the Lvovugol enterprise have been shut down, the Confederation of Free Trade Unions (CFTU) of Ukraine reported Tuesday.
“Ten thousand miners have stopped work and entered a new phase of a strike. They are demanding that closure of mines be stopped, and are insisting on the resignation of Energy and Coal Industry Minister [Vladimir] Demchishin,” chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Ukraine’s Miners, Mikhail Volynets, said.
Miners are displaying posters where their key demands are written, including the resignation of Energy and Coal Industry Minister Demchishin and full repayment of wage arrears for January and February. As of March 24, only ten million hryvnias out of 95 million owed have been paid.
The striking miners say they will block an international highway to press their demands.
Earlier on Tuesday, miners held a rally in the town of Dmitrov in the Lviv Region. On Monday, miners held a rally in front of the Lvov administration building. A few hundred miners demanded that wage arrears for January-February be paid to them.
Earlier this month, miners organizations held a number of protest rallies in Kyiv in front of the presidential administration, the office of the cabinet of ministers, and the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s Parliament.
Miners are demanding that wage arrears be repaid to them and amendments be introduced into the law “on Ukraine’s state budget for 2015,” to stipulate expenditures for stable work and development of the coal industry, labor protection and wages for miners.
Read also:
Report of coal miner protests earlier this year, on New Cold War.org
