Miners strike for back pay (02/09/97)

Miners strike for back pay

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Chanting "Zar-pla-ta" and banging their helmets on the cold, wet pavement, almost 1,500 miners from the coal mining regions of Ukraine demonstrated before the Cabinet of Ministers Building and the Verkhovna Rada on February 4.

Members of the Coal Mine Workers' Union from the cities of Donetsk, Makiyivka and Pavlohrad, Luhansk and Krasnoarmiisk were demanding "zarplata" (wages), which some haven't received since August 1996, as well as unpaid pensions, disability benefits and student stipends for their families and co-workers. Demonstration leaders said the government owes them almost 1.5 billion hryvni.

Although the miners demanded to see Vice Prime Minister Vasyl Durdynets, Minister of the Coal Industry Yuriy Rusantsov came out to speak with them instead. He was shouted down each time he suggested that payments would soon resume. Igor Pomarionov, one of the demonstrators who stood just off to the side from the minister, belligerently kept shouting, "We have heard your promises and your lies before. When was the last time you weren't paid?"

The miners then moved up Hrushevskyi Street to the Verkhovna Rada building and resumed their chanting and helmet beating until Oleksander Moroz, chairman of the parliament, appeared. He told the workers that they are not the only ones who have been affected by the collapse of the economy. He promised to meet with the Cabinet of Ministers that evening to resolve the problem. He did not, however, put the matter before the deputies at the afternoon session of the Verkhovna Rada as the miners had demanded.

The demonstrators gathered in the afternoon at the former October Revolution Palace where they were addressed by the chairman of the Independent Miners' Union of Ukraine, Viktor Derzhak. "Tensions are running very high in Donetsk and other coal basins of Ukraine," he said.

According to Interfax-Ukraine, Mr. Derzhak suggested that the government should subsidize the price of coal shipped to state-owned companies, that it should guarantee orders of 75 percent of coal industry output and that a system of advanced credits should be introduced.

Coal Industry Minister Rusantsov, who was present along with Vice Prime Minister Durdynets and Minister of the Economy Vasyl Hureiev, acknowledged that Ukraine's debt to the miners is 1.33 billion hrv, He said the 1997 government budget, which has not yet been approved by the Verkhovna Rada, authorized 1.55 billion hrv to cover back pay for workers.

A related rally took place in Donetsk, where 1,000 mine workers protested outside the Coal Industry Ministry building in support of their striking co-workers in Kyiv.

The miners have been striking and demonstrating on and off for several years, each time the government stops sending their pay. The strikes have had only immediate benefits: after each strike the government has released some funds to cover back pay, but after a while the checks stop arriving.

In August 1996, after a strike by independent coal miners, President Leonid Kuchma initiated a commission to investigate where the money is going. At the time he said that funds earmarked to cover miners' salaries were disappearing before they reached the workers and he ordered Vice Prime Minister Durdynets to lead an investigation. That inquiry has not yet announced any findings.

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