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Some 10,000 miners go on strike in western Ukraine

Miners demand resignation of Ukraine's energy and coal industry minister and full repayment of wage arrears for January and February
Coal miners' protest in Kiev EPA/ SERGEY DOLZHENKO
Coal miners' protest in Kiev
© EPA/ SERGEY DOLZHENKO

KIEV, March 24. /TASS/. Some 10,000 miners are taking part in a protest rally in the city of Chervonohrad in western Ukraine’s Lviv Region, all seven mines of the Lvovugol enterprise have been shut down, the Confederation of Free Trade Unions (CFTU) of Ukraine reported Tuesday.

"Ten thousand miners have stopped work and entered a new phase of an early strike. They are demanding that closure of mines be stopped, and are insisting on the resignation of Energy and Coal Industry Minister [Vladimir] Demchishin," chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Ukraine’s Miners Mikhail Volynets said.

Miners are holding posters where their key demands are written: resignation of [Energy and Coal Industry Minister] Demchishin and full repayment of wage arrears for January and February [as of March 24, only 10 million hryvnias out of 95 million have been paid].

Otherwise, miners said they would block an international highway.

Earlier Tuesday, miners held a rally in the town of Dmitrov in the Lviv Region. On Monday, miners held a rally in front of the Lvov administration building. A few hundred miners demanded that wage arrears for January-February be paid to them.

Earlier, miners organizations held a number of protest rallies in front of the presidential administration, the cabinet of ministers and the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s unicameral parliament, in Kiev.

Miners demanded that wage arrears be repaid to them and amendments be introduced into the law "on Ukraine’s state budget for 2015," to stipulate expenditures for stable work and development of the coal industry, labor protection and wages for miners.