In four days, wage arrears at Ukrainian mines will reach UAH 1,6 billion
Wage arrears in the Ukrainian coal industry continue to grow, and miners’ hopes for an improvement in the situation are not justified.
The head of the independent trade union of miners of Ukraine, Mikhail Volynets, stated this at the All-Ukrainian meeting of coal industry workers in Ukraine, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“At the moment, wage arrears for miners amount to 1 billion 100 million. Salaries for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 have not been partially paid. This makes us think - what is happening in the coal industry, what is happening in the energy complex? Over the week, the debt will increase by another 500 million, taking into account wages for February, and will total 1 billion 600 million.
We live between good hopes and cold showers. I remember last spring, when miners died at the Lesnaya mine and President Vladimir Zelensky instantly went there and met with people. This is a warm wind of hopes and expectations.
At the same time, Energy Minister Igor Nasalik is in Kalush and is trying to re-register the Kalush thermal power plant in his family’s name. He doesn’t go where the president is, he doesn’t need it.
But he did not bear responsibility, just like Vengrin, who “oversees” the coal industry in this region. Nasalik still continues to be mined at the Lvov processing plant and this rock mass, along with Russian coal, is transported to the warehouses of thermal power plants and the warehouses of thermal power plants and thermal power plants are stocked with it. But Donetsk coal is not needed,” the miner is indignant.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who was present at the meeting, promised to pay off the debt. He invited the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Minister of Community and Territorial Development Denis Shmygal to tour mining towns in order to personally familiarize himself with the problems of the miners, but before that to pay off the wage arrears.
“Let’s prepare a trip to all these mining towns, we’ll go around, but with a plan so that we can look people in the eyes normally, so that we pay off the debt. We didn’t come like Robinhoods - we saw the problem and paid it off the next day, but first we will close what we need to close, we will close the debt, and then we will go to all these cities,” Zelensky dreams.
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