Coal miners protest in capital (06/22/97)

Coal miners protest in capital

KYIV - Some 1,000 coal miners from throughout Ukraine marched on the president's office on June 17, demanding months of back wages and denouncing the government's economic policies, the Associated Press reported that day. The miners bore banners with angry slogans and banged their orange helmets on the pavement behind a police barricade that kept them out of the square in front of President Leonid Kuchma's office.

Chanting "President! President!," the miners urged Mr. Kuchma to address their demands, which for many included a halt to mine closings and an end to what they call misguided and ineffective economic reform efforts.

"The reforms have failed completely and the government will not admit it," said Mykola Kozlov, a miner from Vatutine, a town in Cherkasy Oblast. "The state has turned 90 percent of the population into beggars, while 10 percent have gotten rich," alleged Mr. Kozlov, who has not been paid in eight months.

Coal miners are owed nearly $765 million in back wages and other payments, part of an over-all nationwide salary backlog of nearly $2.7 billion.

The AP reported that Mr. Kozlov's colleague, Ivan Petrenko, said their mine and others in Vatutine are being closed and nothing is being done to find work for 1,500 people slated to be laid off.

"They're throwing us out on the street," Mr. Petrenko said. He called for the ouster of Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko and his government, and said he will vote for Socialists or Communists in parliamentary elections next year.

Under a government program to reform the unprofitable industry, 40 of Ukraine's 276 coal mines are to be closed by the end of the year, and at least 36 more within five years. So far, only four have been shut. Yevhen Borysov, a trade union official from Donetsk Oblast, said the miners would continue their picket until their demand for back wages is fulfilled.

"We have been deceived by the Parliament and the Cabinet of Ministers; the president is our last hope," Mr. Borysov said. "He must show whether or not he is the guarantor of the Constitution."

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