From the website of Avtonomniy Opir (Autonomous Resistance): http://opir.info/);
translated by Marko Bojcun
On 27 November the workers at the Kryviy Rih iron ore company Sukha Balka announced the beginning of a struggle against the owner of the mine – the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. The miners are convinced that the owner is deliberately destroying the mine. They are preparing to call a strike.
In 2007 Sukha Balka was bought out by the corporation Evraz, owned by one of the most influential businessmen of the Russian Federation Roman Abramovych. From the first days of Russian aggression against Ukraine the mine’s owner has pursued a policy of the most rapid exploitation of the mine’s potential and then its closure.
The profits of Evraz Sukha Balka in 2014 were 840 million hryvnia (60 million Euros) While the volume of production at the mine has been rising constantly the mine managers have been economising on mine maintenance and safety, requiring the miners to pay for their safety equipment themselves. Miners are being summarily and illegally dismissed from work, the workday of remaining miners grows longer, their tasks and responsibilities multiply thus making accidents all the more likely. Despite a high rate of inflation wages are not indexed and the incidence of premiums and bonuses not being paid out is growing.
The miners are convinced that in the current situation of the Russo-Ukrainian war Abramovich is preparing to liquidate the mine once he has exploited it and the miners to the maximum degree possible. The miners know that the iron ore they mine leaves the country for sale in Russia via the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. A significant part of the profits are invested in enterprises of the occupying power. More than one hundred workers at Sukha Balka did swervice in the ATO zone or are presently defending Ukraine in this zone of military conflict. Many of them are volunteers.
Ukrainian miners don’t want to work at all for the income of Russian oligarchs and contribute to financing these “people’s republics”.
For these reasons the miners decided at a meeting on 27 November to prepare for a full-scale legal strike. If the demands of the workers for an improvement in their work conditions are not met they will then proceed to a struggle for the nationalisation of the mine.
We, the trade unionists of this iron ore plant, the movement Autonomous Resistance, the Kyiv left and social activists, call upon you to unite in solidarity with the miners of Kryviy Rih and to support them in their struggle against oligarchic capital.
Contact: 0669597804 – Denys; Lviv – 0633591618 – Serhiy; Kryviy Rih – 0967715459 – Oleksandr.
Following the campaign in support of the miners: http://opir.info/ https://vk.com/club32440788
Observer Ukraine 