UKRAINIAN mineworkers are planning a march on Kiev to protest at non-payment of wages on this month’s Miners’ Day.

Coal miners from the Donbass say the industry is close to collapse, with many workers owed months of back pay and mines shutting down due to a lack of electricity. Even prestigious high-tech collieries such as Yuzhnodonbasskoye No 1, with an output of over 1.3 million tons a year, will face a blackout from next week as electricity is cut off. The administrators say the mine is unable to pay its electricity debts. The shutdown will leave over 4,000 miners idle, while 3,000 are out of work at state-owned Toretskugl for similar reasons. Last week, miners at Novogrodovskaya and Kurakhovskaya mines refused to work until wages from May, June and July are paid. They marched 20 miles to the city of Selidov to protest to the mines’ director-general. 

Miners’ Day falls on the last Sunday in August in various former Soviet republics, commemorating August 31 1935, when Russian miner Alexei Stakhanov broke records by mining 102 tons of coal in five hours and 45 minutes in the Lugansk town that now bears his name.