STATEMENT of UNIONS of UKRAINE AGAINST VIOLATION of MINEWORKERS RIGHTS FOR THE PERFORMANCE of PROTEST ACTIONS Печать
21.05.2015 16:38

Mineworkers of Ukraine driven to despair because of regular growth of wage indebtedness, redundancy and extension of unemployment in the country, the absence of any real steps on the Government side to overcome corruption at the Energy sector and mass collieries closeout threat, on 22 April 2015 had to go out and take part in the mass protest action. 

 The basic requirements settled on the eve of the Mineworkers Congress – wage indebtedness, urgent measures by the Government to adjust crisis situation at the mining industry, state support for the industry and social guarantees in accordance with the law of Ukraine on the prestigious of miner’s work – bear not political but exclusively social and economic character. Those were some certain politicians and mass media which evaluated mineworkers’ actions as a political provocation directed against power.  

The Unions of Ukraine express a strong protest to such political provocations and for many times states that Unions are out of the policy but their responsibility is to uphold employees’ rights using such extreme measures as protest actions that is done in case when the social dialogue does not work. The representatives of miner’s staff under the walls of the President Administration, Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers – members of Unions from the West and East – were united with the solidarity and hope regarding demands made by Unions that they would be heard by the power.

     During the entire protest actions week the mineworkers did not obtain any responses to the essential issues. The power instead tries to lay a political accusation against trade union activists. The Unions of Ukraine are requesting the head of Ukraine, Prime Minister of Ukraine to organize actual work regarding problems solving at the mining industry and do not persecute working people – trade union activists who went out to fight for their labor rights by legal mode.