More than 50 miners of the Kapitalnaya mine in the Kiev-controlled part of Donetsk region are not coming up to the surface for the second day because of salary debts. Miners and their wives also continue to go on hunger strike in Lugansk region, the head of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine Mikhail Volynets said on Wednesday.
According to Volinets, the debt to employees of the state enterprise Mirnogradugol, which includes Kapitalnaya, reaches 93.12 million hryvnia ($3.7 million) as of February 1. He also said that the miners of the state enterprise Pervomayskugol in Lugansk region together with their wives went on a hunger strike because of salary debts.
“As of 8.45 (9.45 Moscow time – editor’s note), the mining protest movement looks as follows. The second day 53 miners of the Kapitalna mine of the Mirnogradugol state enterprise (Donetsk oblast) do not come to the surface”, – Volynets wrote on his Facebook page, adding that the miners refused to come down to the slaughter.
Miners have repeatedly held rallies in Kyiv and other regions of the country, demanding payment of salary debts and protesting against the authorities’ intention to close a number of mines. Earlier, the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers sent 13.7m dollars to pay miners’ salaries. At the end of December 2019, they began to flow into miners’ accounts.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the situation with arrears of miners’ salaries should be resolved in the nearest future. In addition, he obliged the government to prepare a program for restructuring the coal industry and to audit the state mines.