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Vol. 81/No. 25 July 10, 2017
Miners, rail workers in Ukraine fight gov’t,
boss attacks
BY PATRICIA MARSHALL
Over the past year tens of thousands of workers in Ukraine have been
involved in strikes and protest actions against deteriorating living and
working conditions, unpaid wages, and harassment and firings of union
activists.
In February 2014 sustained popular mobilizations by workers and others,
known as the Maidan, toppled the pro-Moscow regime in Ukraine. Since
then working people have faced deepening attacks on living conditions
and political rights by the bosses, the capitalist government in Kiev,
and international “advisers” and lenders from Washington to the
International Monetary Fund.
The effects of the worldwide slowdown in production and trade have been
exacerbated by a Russian-backed separatist war in Ukraine’s industrial
southeast and by Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014. Three
years into the war 10,000 people have died and almost 3 million have
been displaced in Ukraine or have fled to Russia.
“Kryvyi Rih has the biggest concentration of industrial workers with
different multinational corporations like Evraz, Metinvest and
ArcelorMittal,” said Mykhailo Volynets, chair of the Independent Trade
Union of Miners of Ukraine (NPGU), in a May 24 phone interview with the
Militant. “They export and get normal world prices but they pay low
wages, the equivalent of $150 to $500 per month. Workers know how to
count. They do the math and want to get back to the 2008 wage level of
1,000 euros [$1,125].”
Protests and underground sit-ins by thousands of iron ore miners in
Kryvyi Rih earlier in May started at the Iron Ore Combine and included a
tense standoff at Evraz Sukha Balka. Miners’ families and other workers
assembled at the Evraz mine after management refused to let supplies
through to 620 protesting miners nearly a mile underground. “The
blockade was broken and the Evraz administration started negotiations,”
Volynets said.
An occupation at the ArcelorMittal mine administration building by more
than 1,000 workers led to the opening of negotiations. Agreements were
reached with all three companies for wage increases between 20 and 70
percent.
The government of President Petro Poroshenko, who is worth over
three-quarters of a billion dollars, is pursuing a series of
anti-working-class measures, part of qualifying for loans of up to $17.5
billion from the IMF. These include the closure or privatization of
state-owned industries, including two-thirds of state-owned mines; sale
of publicly owned agricultural land; cuts in pensions; and a new
anti-worker Labor Code.
“The old, former state-run unions support the new Labor Code and the
independent unions are excluded from the hearings on it,” said Volynets.
“Article 67 says that if production stops at one site, the boss can
transfer workers to another site and can fire workers who refuse,” he
said. “It’s like a master transferring slaves.”
Miners in the state sector have frequently barricaded roads and carried
out other protests to get months of back wages. Miners from Novovolynsk
in western Ukraine sent representatives to protest at the Ministry of
Energy and Mines in Kiev May 16 over mounting unpaid wages.
During March 35 people died in workplaces across Ukraine. From June 6 to
12, two miners were killed at separate mines, and four others were
seriously injured in a methane gas explosion at another. “Workers are
disappointed in the authorities and there’ll be more conflict,” Volynets
said.
Hundreds of rail workers protested outside the Ukrainian Railway
headquarters in Kiev June 14. “We demand a wage increase of at least 100
percent,” said Vladimir Kozelskii, head of the Free Trade Union of
Railway Workers of Ukraine. Their average monthly wage is 6,300 hryvnia
($240). The rail workers set up tents and continued protests over the
next five days.
On June 20 train drivers in Kremenchuk, in central Ukraine, started a
work-to-rule protest backing the Kiev action. No trains left the depot.
Related articles:
Berry workers in Washington win contract, raise, respect
On the Picket Line
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