A major dispute is underway between mineworkers in Poltava in West Ukraine and Ferrexpo Plc, a major player on the global market mainly engaged in mining of iron ore. All three shifts in the open cast in the town of Komsomolsk, of more than 300 workers each are now involved in industrial action. Some railway locomotive drivers and workers on the iron ore concentrating factory have joined in solidarity.

The action started on the 1 August when the workers at the ore-dressing open cast pit started with a go-slow and work-to-rule. The action began when haul truck drivers on their way down to the 305 meter deep quarry reduce speed of the vehicles from normal 40-45 km/h to the more safe 10-15 km/h. Excavator and bulldozer operators, as well as drilling technicians then joined the action in solidarity. Within 24 hours of the workers action total production had fallen by less than 60% of normal volume. This impact of the workers resistance is continuing. Now nearly one-thousand workers are involved in the action and are losing now approximately 40% of salary due to the underfulfilment of output norms.
The cause of the dispute was a recent re-evaluation of workplaces which led to the opencast mine workers being moved from the ‘first list’ (which implies heavy-load conditions) to the ‘second list’. This means abolition of a number of benefits:

• The retirement age will be lifted from 50 to 55 years;
• required working life will be increased from 20 to 25 years;
• required length of service at heavy-load workplaces – from 10 to 12.6;
• 10 days will be cut from annual holiday entitlement

Evaluation is done every five years; after the previous one, workers kept their ‘first list’. Since then their trucks became older, while the mine grew even deeper. Despite the fact that the certification of job hazard categories is in contravention of Ukrainian law all legal means to contest it led to protracted and unresolved cases in the courts.

Over the last year the management has used lies and blackmail to increase production rates; however each time rates were raised at the end of the month the workers were left without their deserved bonuses. To fulfill quotas, truck drivers routinely have to transgress the legal speed limit.

The company still considered production was growing too slowly. The company used this to deny workers their bonuses. The bonus in question could reach 1000 UAH which is a significant proportion of the average wage (4500 UAH). Meanwhile, during last two years workers’ incomes have dropped almost fourfold due to inflation and currency devaluation. Working hours have also been increased from 8 to 12 per day.

In response to this intolerable situation the industrial action is continuing; judging from the results of the first week, the management isn’t eager to look for constructive solutions. With their every step, the factory management has sought to escalate the dispute.

After workers had announced the beginning of their action in the media, the Ferrexpo company press department has launched a disinformation campaign trying to refute and misrepresent the workers action.

The management also appealed to the local authorities, and activists received summons to the local public prosecutor’s office. It seems like authorities act as employer agents to intimidate workers. One of the workers’ leaders was fired. Some workers were suspended from work. Repressions against workers are growing.

Now the employer has hired 70 scab drivers from another city and put them up in a hotel in Komsomolsk under the guard of private detectives. Every day armed with the Kalashnikov machine-guns private guards’ convoy scabs to the quarry and back to the hotel giving no possibility even to speak to them. (It should be noted that machine-gun firearms are officially prohibited for private guards in Ukraine.) At the moment strikebreakers have not succeeded in increasing production because they do not find it so easy to drive the heavy mining trucks. It’s clear that it would be impossible to increase output without grave danger for the life of workers. But it looks like the employer does not care about possible fatalities.

In spite of this the strikers are resolute; they are doing their utmost to maintain their action in the face of the intimidation and strike breaking by Ferrexpo Plc. The management, having no desire to agree to the workers demands, pays for publications in the international media on a daily basis, assuring readers of colossal revenue growth. Such boasting is particularly cynical, since everyone knows that this revenue is obtained by the super-exploiting of the workers at the enterprise.

The industrial action will last until full satisfaction of the workers’ demands, which are as follows:

• An increase of wages by at least 50%;
• Lowering daily and monthly output quotas to fit the safety requirements and actual human abilities;
• Restitution of the ‘first list of hazard’ and relevant social and pension benefits to all workers of the mine.

This action is clearly provoked by the employer’s impudent unwillingness to meaningfully negotiate with the workers. Ferrexpo Poltava Mining C.E.O. Viktor Lotous said to workers that they are “clowns” and advised one driver to “change his wife” if he can’t provide for the family.

The Poltava miners need international solidarity to force Ferrexpo to stop repression, negotiate seriously and secure the workers just demands.

Send Messages of Solidarity to:
‘Narodna solidarnist’ trade union 
E-mail: ccc@narsolidarnist.org.ua

Telephone: +380 44 2291167, 
Fax: +380 44 5298901;
 www.narsolidarnist.org.ua

Join the protest at Ferrexpo Plc Friday 3 Sept :
2 – 4 King Street
London
SW1Y 6QL. Telephone: +44 207 389 8300


Please send information about protest actions and copies of protest letters to the ‘Narodna solidarnist’ trade union on e-mail ccc@narsolidarnist.org.ua.


//This solidarity call was originally published by The Commune.