Coal Miners Go on Strike in Russia and Ukraine
More than 1 million Russian and Ukrainian coal miners went on strike Thursday in a wave of anger that could lead to budgetary chaos and affect Russia’s presidential election campaign.
From Ukraine’s coal-rich Donbass region to eastern Siberia, miners were demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid wages and protesting government neglect of state-owned mines.
“We’ll make them respect us and teach them a lesson,” Ivan Mokhnachuk, deputy head of Russia’s Union of Coal Industry Workers, said in Moscow.
The walkouts come in the dead of winter in countries heavily reliant on coal. In eastern Siberia, coal is the only energy source, and some regions have only about a week’s reserves.
But the immediate impact is expected to be political.
Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, once immensely popular among miners, was scrambling to deal with their demands as he prepares for an expected reelection bid in June.
Ukrainian President Leonid D. Kuchma has been trying to push through free-market reforms over the objections of the parliament.
About 1 million of 1.2 million miners went on strike in Ukraine; in Russia, about 500,000 walked out. The strikes apparently were coordinated, but the miners in each country were pressing their own demands.
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