Lugansk: authorities cough up miners’ unpaid wages, but activists still under arrest

Mineworkers have ended an underground occupation in separatist-controlled territory in Lugansk, eastern Ukraine, after bosses paid most of the wages they were owed. But 14 trade union activists are still under arrest by the authorities of the Russian-supported “people’s republic”.

The sit-in by 119 mineworkers at the Komsomolskaya mine in the city of Antratsit, which started on Friday 5 June, ended in the early hours of Saturday 13 June. They were paid a large part of the wages they were owed, promised the rest by this week, and assured that there would be no more arrests.

On Friday, about 100 people gathered in the town square at Antratsit to support the miners. Pavel Lisyansky, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman in the area and a long-standing trade union activist, said in a facebook post:

I have been informed that the final decision to accede to the protesting mineworkers’ demands was made on account of the solidarity protest by people in Antratsit. The Russian federation’s occupation administration feared that this protest would spread, especially since international trade union organisations had begun to speak out about the strike.

Lisyansky said on Saturday that an electronic and transport blockade of Antratsit, and the

Demonstrators in Antratsit on Friday. Photo: ok.ru/vgorodeant, via MK

Dubovsky area around the mine, continued, and the fate of activists arrested last week was unknown. The internet was blocked, although Whatsapp and similar services worked.

Aleksandr Vaskovsky of the Independent Miners Union of Donbass said, in an interview with News.ru, that 21 activists – based in Krasnodon, Rovenki, Krasnyi Luch and Belorechensk, as well as Antratsit – had been detained last week. Some had been tortured.

According to News.ru, Azamatkhan Karimov, an activist of the Workers Control group, had reported that seven of these 21 were released on 9 June. Karimov said that the detainees

Black and white protesters have changed the political landscape

These comments on the Black Lives Matter protests were published by Let’s Get Rooted, a group looking to focus on workers’ self-organisation at work and beyond.

Hundreds of thousands of people in cities across the world marched in defiance of their governments and police to show their solidarity with the protest in the US against the police murder of George Floyd.

His murder by the police was just one more in the long list of such killings in the US, in the UK

London, 7 June. Photo by Steve Eason

and around the world. But the response to this latest outrage has been a storm of protest which is inspiring. Black and white protesters, mostly young, have changed the political landscape.

A killing, which in previous times might have led to local black protests in the US, lit a spark of multiple frustrations and discontent. The world is in lockdown with the coronavirus epidemic which has highlighted and deepened all the social inequalities. The virus is a killer but its victims, medically and financially, are overwhelmingly the most deprived sections of society.

In the UK, a government which came to power on its nationalistic, flag-waving Brexit campaign has shown its incompetence and indifference to ordinary people’s lives, trying to push people back to work, push children to school – all to try to get the profit making machine going again.

The protesters in Bristol who pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston will be cheered by millions of people. The footage of the mass murderer, who has been worshipped by the Bristol elite for decades, being rolled and dropped in the river will be watched over and over again.

It is hilarious watching British politicians, academics, civic dignitaries and other worthies all now trying to play catch-up with their learned debate about whether to remove other statues. Sir

Lugansk miners occupy pit and defy security forces

Mineworkers are staging an underground occupation in defiance of the authorities in the Lugansk separatist “republic” in eastern Ukraine – who have responded with a campaign of intimidation and arrests.

There were 123 mineworkers underground at the Komsomolskaya pit, in the mining town of Antratsit, for the third day running on Sunday (7 June), the News.ru site reported yesterday. One who had fallen ill was brought to the surface.

The protesters are demanding that their wages for March and April be paid in full. A similar underground protest on 21 April resulted in some money being handed over by Vostok-ugol’,

An earlier protest, in Zorinsk in the Lugansk “republic”, on 4 May, against the closure of the local pit. Photo from Dialog.ua

a new company set up in the “republic” and charged with closing pits and cutting the labour force.

The Lugansk and Donetsk “people’s republics” were set up by separatist military forces, supported by the Russian government, who clashed with the Ukrainian army in the military conflict of 2014.

The militarised regimes have clamped down on labour and social movement activists, and made independent journalism impossible in the “republics” – meaning that protest has been rare, and news of it does not travel easily. But this week mineworkers and their supporters have taken action nonetheless.

On Sunday the Lugansk “republic” police blockaded the Komsomolskaya mine and stopped food and drink being passed in to the occupiers. Galina Dmitrieva, a local trade union activist, received a a message saying that state security ministry (MGB) officials were on their way to the mine.

After that, mobile phone reception was blocked and the popular “Vkontakte” social media (similar to facebook) was blocked. News.ru published text exchanges with local residents who

Moscow couriers strike: “no limit to the indignation”

Couriers at Delivery Club, a food delivery company in Moscow, staged a strike on Friday to protest at fines and impossible work demands. Their ranks have swelled five times over during the coronavirus lockdown. These two reports were translated and published by the Russian Reader.

Report by RTV1, 5 June:

Couriers at the food delivery service Delivery Club in Moscow held a strike on 5 June. According to them, working conditions at the company have recently taken a turn for the worse. For example, the company has started giving couriers long-distance orders, as well as

Striking food couriers at Delivery Club, Moscow on Friday. Photo by Mitya Lyalin, courtesy of RTV1

frequently fining them. The workers walked out in protest. Our correspondent followed the industrial action and listened to the protesters’ demands.

Around forty couriers, nearly all of them wearing the company’s bright green raincoats, came to Delivery Club’s offices this afternoon. The couriers did not chant slogans. They wanted to speak with company management. Although they were not deterred by heavy rain and waited for over two hours, no one from Delivery Club management came out to speak with them.

In a conversation with RTVI, one of the protesters expressed his dismay.

“We have gathered here to get them to cancel the excessive fines against us. Take me: I deliver on foot. I used to get orders within a three-kilometer range, but now they’ve been sending me