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Ukraine coal miners rally for protest mine closings, cuts to subsidies

Hundreds of coal miners from all over Ukraine make it to Kyiv on April 22 to rally near the Cabinet of Ministers. The demonstration followed the third congress of Ukrainian coal miners that was held in Kyiv a day before, where the activists called on President Petro Poroshenko to dismiss Volodymyr Demchyshyn, energy and coal minister.

The miners accused Demchyshyn of wiping out the coal industry as he announced on April 21 that 11 mines may have to be closed.

The rally started near the presidential administration where the miners gathered in early hours on April 22. They broke through police cordon on Bankova Street as they wanted to hand over their demands to the country's leadership.

Later the activists headed to the governmental buildings in downtown Kyiv. They were banging their helmets on the pavement and the Cabinet building’s fence calling on the Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to come over.

Mykhailo Volynets, one of the leaders of the rally, who heads the Independent Union of Mine Workers, says the miners won’t leave Kyiv unless the government representatives will talk to them.

They listed their demands to the government, Volynets said, pointing out that the miners mostly want their jobs to be protected. They also want the government to resume subsidies to the mines that help power Ukrainian industry and insists on amendments being made to the budget to support the mines.

Volynets is also certain Ukraine should stop coal and electricity imports as the budget doesn’t allow it.

“They should not shut down mines and just let people work,” Volynets says, adding that the salaries should be raised as well.

Volodymyr Shevchuk, a miner from the eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlograd, says they also want to revive the prestige of coal miners’ work. Shevchuk, 44, works at Pavlogradugol, coal mine owned by Ukraine’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov, whose DTEK group owns 31 coal mines and 13 coal enrichment plants.

“We appeal to the minister Demchyshyn, because we don’t want him to kill the industry,” Shevchuk says. He describes the situation in the industry as a “difficult” one, because many of the miners didn’t get their payments. However, those who work for DTEK mines are mostly being paid, Shevchuk says.

Even though most of the protesters were from eastern Ukraine DTEK mines, including Donetsk, Pavlohrad, Krasnoamiysk and Lysychansk, there were also the miners from western Ukraine who took part in the protests. Myroslav Sanin from Lviv Oblast’s Chervonohrad was one of those.

Sanin, 28, says the miners from Chervonohrad coal mine didn’t get their payments on time. “We received some payment before our trip to Kyiv – as the management didn’t want us to have a violent protests,” Sanin explains.

He believes the key problem is that Demchyshyn doesn’t understand the challenges of the industry. “We don’t have normal equipment to work with, and our salaries are low and they cut our subsidies. I wish they would get into the mine once and see the conditions we work in.”

The activists ended up demonstrating in front of the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry and blocked Khreshatyk Street. Many of the protesters chanted “Shame!” as none of the government representatives showed up.

Some experts, however, believe the rally is not only economic in nature, but also has political coloring.

Political analyst Vitaly Bala, who heads the Situation Modeling Agency, believes such rally is yet another signal for the president to take a hard line against country’s oligarchs as they don’t want to lose their monopolies.

“Why they (the protesters) were rallying near the presidential administration while it’s the government who’s about to close the mines.” Bala says. “There was someone who coordinated them – and there is one person behind the back of many of those protesters – Rinat Akhmetov who doesn’t want the government to break oligarchs’ hold of economy. And the protesters need to address Akhmetov about their salaries.”

Earlier Demchyshyn has accused DTEK of running a monopoly.

"The possibility of loading Centrenergo's power plants (with coal from South Africa) today is the only way to fight against a monopolist like you," Demchyshyn said, addressing a DTEK representative at a meeting of the council of the wholesale electricity market on Jan. 23.

source: http://www.kyivpost.com