Ukraine Miners Trade Union Says Filed Complaint With UN Labor Agency Over Salary Arrears

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published August 16, 2018 | 07:02 PM

Mykhailo Volynets, the head of the Independent Trade Union of Ukrainian Miners, said on Thursday that he had submitted a complaint to the International Labour Organization (ILO), a UN agency, about the violation of miners rights due to non-payment of salaries to them.

KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th August, 2018) Mykhailo Volynets, the head of the Independent Trade Union of Ukrainian Miners, said on Thursday that he had submitted a complaint to the International Labour Organization (ILO), a UN agency, about the violation of miners rights due to non-payment of salaries to them.

"The Independent Trade Union of Ukrainian Miners does not shun away from the miners fight for their legitimate rights. I have filed a complaint with the International Labour Organization, which is a part of the United Nations, about the violation of the ILO Convention 95 in Ukraine on the right to receive compensation for work," Volynets wrote on Facebook.

The official recalled that President Petro Poroshenko had not yet signed the new budget bill, recently adopted by the parliament, that allocates additional 1.

4 billion hryvnias (over $50 million) to state-run coal mining companies for paying salaries to miners.

Volynets noted that unpaid wages in the mining companies stood at 1 billion hryvnias, and were expected to grow by 500 million hryvnias in the coming two weeks.

"That is why miners have no other choice than to protest," Volynets pointed out.

Workers in Ukrainian coal mining companies have been in need of salaries since 2015. Their strikes escalated earlier this year when several miners engaged in a hunger strike to attract the governments attention to the issue.