Vol. 79/No. 19 May 25, 2015
In these and other skirmishes, workers in Ukraine are up against a government and employers that not only seek to make them pay for a deep economic crisis, but are carrying out a slander campaign to smear them as tools of the mine owners, and falsely accuse them of aiding the Moscow-backed separatist war that threatens to flare up again.
Workers at the Novovolynsk mines have organized new locals of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine (NPGU) since the start of the year. They have been protesting the government’s plans to close the mines and its purchase of cheaper coal for electrical generation from Russia and elsewhere, instead of making the investments necessary to maintain Ukrainian mines and jobs. “In January the miners received what they had earned in December 2014,” noted the union’s announcement on the May 7 action, and since then they haven’t been paid a cent.
At the Lviv Coal processing plant, jointly owned by three private companies and the state, workers have faced chronic delays in being paid. On April 27 they voted to set a May 12 deadline to be paid in full. When the deadline wasn’t met, they blocked an international highway and then entered negotiations with company and government officials.
“We call upon the Government not to neglect elementary aspirations of working people to have the right to work and get paid for their work,” said NPGU President Mikhailo Volynets in a May 8 open letter to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and state officials. The letter denounced government and media attempts to “manipulate, persecute and discredit both the miners and trade union activists.”
“The government is shameless in its attacks,” Alexei Simvolokov, a leader of the NPGU in Dnepropetrovsk, told the Militant in a May 8 phone interview. “They not only accuse miners of being paid by mine owner Rinat Akhmetov, but accuse anyone who protests the government of helping [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the separatists, even when they’re just asking for their own wages they earned.”
“The miners went to Kiev because they’re angry,” Simvolokov said, referring to the April 21-22 national miners congress attended by some 800 delegates from across the country and protests there at the same time. “This was a real protest, by real miners, with real demands.”
‘It was worth it to protest’
“When we had our first protest at the rocket plant Jan. 21 they accused us of being separatists,” added Evgenyi Derkach, a leader of the Independent Trade Union of Labor Protection at the giant Yuzhmash plant in Dnepropetrovsk. He said the local media and plant administration asked, “Where do they get the money?” when workers began rallying to demand seven months’ wages they were owed.“It was worth it to protest,” Derkach said. “Workers just received a total of 80 million hryvnia, [$3.8 million] all of the back pay they were owed. It’s an important result that wouldn’t have happened without the fight.” At the same time, Derkach said, government officials are trying to block attempts to officially register the independent union.
Meanwhile, fighting between separatists and government forces and volunteer battalions in eastern Ukraine is heating up again. Since a cease-fire officially took effect in mid-February, Kiev has completely or partially lost control of 28 towns and villages along the 280-mile front line, according to a government report published May 6. There is frequent shelling in the government-held towns of Shyrokyne, just east of the port city of Mariupol, and in Avdiivka, where the country’s largest coke plant is located.
In an April 27 meeting with Poroshenko, European Union officials made clear they aren’t about to consider Kiev’s request for EU membership, nor for visa-free travel for Ukrainians to EU countries. Instead, they insisted that Kiev push harder on “reforms” that are a condition for loans from the EU, International Monetary Fund and other imperialist lenders.
An April report published by the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council gives a glimpse of the economic crisis in Ukraine and how working people are forced to bear the brunt of it. Overall the country’s gross domestic product fell 6.8 percent in 2014, with much sharper drops in mining, manufacturing and construction. By the end of March, consumer prices had soared 45 percent over the year before.
For the report’s authors, the devaluation of the country’s currency and inflation have had “positive impacts” on the budget. Tax revenues increased, while “growth of expenditures was restricted by austerity measures that contained wage costs.”
While the government spent more on paying interest to wealthy lenders and on the military, “these increases were partially offset by declines in social expenditures.” This includes cuts of 8.1 percent in spending for social security and health care, and a 5.9 percent cut in education funding. Pension payments were below budget projections because “Ukrainian authorities stopped payment of pensions in the territories beyond their control.”
Putin seeks to whip up patriotism
Putin aimed to use the massive military parade May 9 marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe to maintain support for the assault on Ukraine, seizure of Crimea and to tamp down protests against the effects on working people from the stagnating economy. Workers in Russia are increasingly battered by an economic crisis fueled by falling oil prices and imperialist sanctions. There have been a growing number of strikes and protests across the country over unpaid wages and social service cutbacks. Last month a group of construction workers in Siberia painted in huge letters on the roof of their dormitories, “Dear Putin, four months without pay.”Meanwhile, Putin’s claim that there are no Russian soldiers fighting with the separatist forces in Ukraine is wearing thin. Some Russian troops have given media interviews from Ukraine. And Reuters published an article May 10 interviewing several Russian soldiers who quit the military after being forced to fight in eastern Ukraine.
Related articles:
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On the Picket Line
Forest fire threatens Chernobyl radiation release
Help send ‘Militant’ reporting team to Ukraine
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