Vol. 79/No. 3      February 2, 2015

BY NAOMI CRAINE
As fighting continues between government forces and Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine and the country’s economy nosedives, the capitalist rulers in Kiev are targeting the working class. Union battles for pay and social programs are spreading.

Ukraine’s economy contracted 7.5 percent in 2014. Industrial production was down 17.9 percent in December from a year earlier. Coal production — concentrated in the areas most affected by fighting — is down a staggering 59 percent. The national currency, the hryvnia, has lost nearly half of its value against the dollar, contributing to soaring inflation. Prices of many goods workers need have doubled.

After mass mobilizations toppled the pro-Moscow government of Viktor Yanukovych last February, the Russian government seized Crimea and instigated a separatist war in the Donbass region of southeastern Ukraine. In recent months Russian President Vladimir Putin has distanced himself from the leaders of the self-proclaimed People’s Republics in Donetsk and Luhansk, while continuing to provide them with enough weapons and fighters to keep up pressure against the Ukrainian government.

Coal from Donbass had generated 40 percent of electricity used in Ukraine. The separatist thugs shut down some of the mines and are controlling production from the rest, leading to rolling blackouts throughout the country.

Electricity shortages have forced cutbacks in industrial production. At the Evraz iron ore mine in Kryvyi Rih “the second shift is mostly stopped, because there’s not enough electricity to keep the ventilation running,” Bondar Vitalievych, head of the Independent Trade Union of Miners at the mine, told the Militant Jan. 12. Idled workers “are still getting their base pay, but none of the bonuses” that make up a significant part of their regular income.

“The new government’s laws cut social payments, including for disabled miners,” Vitalievych said. “Both the government and private employers argue that growing expenses for the war mean they have to lower pay and benefits.”

Workers fight for unpaid wages
In December workers who operate the public trams in Kiev carried out a series of job actions demanding as much as six months back pay. The fight was initiated by rank-and-file workers who then decided to unionize, said Yuriy Samoilov, president of the miners union in Kryvyi Rih. His union has sent militants to help the transit workers organize. After a first round of protests in early December, management agreed to negotiate. But with many workers still not paid, and management threatening union leaders, they carried out strike actions Dec. 17-18.

Samoilov said the union in Kryvyi Rih has also sent members to support coal miners fighting for back pay in the western city of Novovolynsk. The miners carried out a one-day strike Dec. 24 and have twice blocked the interstate highway there.

In Kryvyi Rih, unlike many other places, miners “are getting paid on time, because we’re very active so the bosses are afraid not to,” Vitalievych said.

In response to low wages and a three-month delay in being paid, transit workers in Khmelnitsky in western Ukraine organized into the Free Trade Union of Railway Workers of Ukraine last summer.

More than 10,000 union members, most of them teachers and other public workers, demonstrated outside the parliament in Kiev Dec. 23, as lawmakers discussed proposals to freeze wages and cut social benefits while raising taxes that will increase the cost of food and other necessities.

When the impact of inflation is taken into account, the 2015 budget projects cutting real spending on education by more than 20 percent, family credits and disability benefits by nearly one-quarter and pension funds by 12 percent. Military spending will more than double, and payments to service Ukraine’s debt to wealthy lenders will increase 37 percent. The minimum wage is to be frozen for all of 2015 and wages of public workers will no longer be indexed to inflation.

Parliament adopted the budget Dec. 29. The International Monetary Fund, whose representatives plan further discussions in Ukraine in January, required passage of the budget as a precondition to release the next portion of a $17 billion “bailout” package.

War in east takes toll on workers
Despite a Sept. 5 cease-fire agreement between Kiev and Moscow, the military conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk grinds on, with a devastating effect on toilers there. As of Jan. 6, the overall death toll is more than 4,800.

Nearly 400 miners were trapped underground for several hours in the Zasyadko coal mine in Donetsk Jan. 11 when a shell hit the electrical substation that powered the elevators and ventilation system. Two days later 13 passengers were killed when shrapnel from a rocket hit a bus stopped at a Ukrainian military checkpoint at Volnovakha.

Separatist forces have also targeted unionists in the areas they control. Mikhailo Volynets, chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine, announced Jan. 16 that the body of Ivan Reznichenko, head of the union at the Artemsil salt mine in Donetsk province, had been found in one of the salt pits. Reznichenko had disappeared June 21.  
 
 
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