08/01/2008 / POLAND
Miners go on strike…underground
Neither Christmas nor New Year alleviated the situation. Miners from
Budryk, Silésie, in south-west Poland,
have reached their twenty-second day of strike without disruption. The
movement, which began over-ground, has now taken refuge under the soil. This
weekend there were almost five-hundred gathered at the bottom of the mine demanding
higher wages. Our Observer in Poland
has helped us to decipher the conflict. We're also publishing a commentary from
one of the leaders of the strike, who says he's asking for only to be paid the same as other miners in Poland.
Contributors
Commentary from Marcin Smietana, our Observer in Poland
The strikers are still underground.
Recently the crew changed level to be in a warmer area. Talks that
were supposed to be held at the municipal council this afternoon were cancelled
due to the fact that the miners ignored them again. They say they'll only take
part under the condition that the negotiations take place in the coalmine.
The mine's CEO Piotr Bojarski says the protesting committee has to take full responsibility for its actions and the consequences of the protest. Recent opinion given by him included comparing the strike leaders to terrorists taking hostages.
Financial losses so far amount to 32m PLN (€9m). The complainants are asking to be paid the same as miners who work for the same group."
Commentary from Krzysztof Labadz, a trade union president in Budryk and currently a strike committee leader
There are about 500 workers grouped
at two different levels in the coalmine. They searched for warmer areas higher
up, however it's still cold and the most urgent need is to provide all the
miners with as many blankets as possible. Blankets were provided by fellow
miners from other coalmines and the protesters also asked the Red Cross for
additional help. We provide food for the strikers. If we didn't everyone would
be on hunger-strike by now.
The Budryk mine is one of the best of its kind in Poland and generates a huge income, and that is why we feel cheated. We see the request as a compromise on our part."
Protesting noisily
Video posted 20 December 2008
Getting together to strike
Video posted 19 December 2008
Strikers sing their complaints
Video posted 3 January 2008
The trade union's online call for action
»
Comments
Update on the mines one month later
Submitted by Marcin Smietana on Thu, 07/02/2008 - 11:47.Yesterday excavation in Budryk coalmine was finally started. The 46-day-long strike ended on Thursday 31 of January. The agreement concluded that day gave Budryk miners 10% increase in salaries which makes 490 PLN gross (average per capita) this year plus 2.2 thou PLN gross (average per capita) of compensation for the previous year. Another crucial part of the agreement is to set up working team to finish standardization of salaries within JSW group by the end of 2010. The agreement looks like a relief to everybody both the strikers and JSW representatives who calculated their losses. They amount to 90m PLN. With such a loss a continuation of a protest and inability to reach an agreement seemed annoying and irrational. So seemed Budryk miners demands. In the last days of conflict striking miners were rather presented as the ones who want to stop decent fellows from work. This was a general picture in the mainstream media. Can we find any grounds for that prolonged protest? The committee leader Krzysztof Labadz described Budryk as modern profitable coalmine implying the miners working there should have salaries at least on the same level as in other JSW companies. JSW CEO Mr Zagorowski claimed he was all the time supporting the “standardization of salaries”. Then why was it so difficult to get there?
Only weekly NIE (for many press readers considered media outcast) dares to say strike’s context was different from what was presented in the mainstream media. The paper defends the miners actually blaming the government in the first instance for accepting Budryk’s merger with JSW. According to NIE Budryk a state owned company was a prosperous one and JSW group recently brought only small profit with the majority of their coalmines generating losses. The paper also blames the government for not considering Budryk its problem anymore.