Frustrated by recent losses on the battlefield, Moscow is intensifying its missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, targeting homes, apartment buildings and workplaces, as well as energy, transportation and other civilian infrastructure.
In a statement released for International Workers’ Day, May 1, the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU) said working people in the mines and hospitals, on the railroads and at other workplaces are risking their lives while keeping the economy running. At the same time, “thousands of our union members are defending Ukraine at the front with weapons in their hands.” Through their work and their struggle, the Ukrainian toilers are defending their country’s sovereignty.
The union pointed to the high price of Moscow’s war paid by “the lives of our fallen brothers and sisters.” Of the 556 civilians killed and 2,731 injured in the first three months of this year alone, 53 workers were killed and 240 injured on the job.
Trade unionists in the Dnipropetrovsk province, near the eastern front, including coal miners, are a deliberate target. A Russian drone hit a miners’ union office in Pavlohrad, injuring a unionist March 10, while another struck a bus transporting mine workers to their shift. A “double tap” drone strike on another busload of miners Feb. 1 killed 12, both miners and rescue workers, and injured 16.
Members of the Free Trade Union of Medical Workers in Nikopol and Marhanets report regular shelling from Russian forces as they care for victims of earlier strikes. In just two months — March and April — Moscow attacked rail lines 352 times.
“At the same time, Ukrainian workers continue to defend” union rights. This includes resisting anti-union laws pushed by capitalist parties in Ukraine’s parliament that seek to roll back job protections, wages and working conditions.
The KVPU called for international solidarity, including support for Ukrainian demands on Moscow for “the release of civilians and trade union activists held in captivity in Russia” and in the temporarily occupied territories.