Soviet miners call off huge strike

Press, 26 July 1989, Page 10

Soviet miners call off huge strike

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Tens of thousands of striking miners in the huge Donbass coalfield have returned to work after impassioned pleas from the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and assurances that their demands would be met. A local government official in the regional centre of Donetsk said yesterday the miners had ended their stoppage. “The main square is completely empty. They all returned to work overnight,” she said. A local mining official confirmed that the miners in Donbass, in eastern Ukraine, the biggest coal-producing area in the Soviet Union, had returned to work. They had been on strike for more than a week after joining striking colleages in the west Siberian Kuzbass coalfield. “All miners in the Donbass region returned to work from eight o’clock (local time) this morning,” the official said yesterday.

The Kuzbass miners ended their strike a week ago after gaining a package of concessions from the Government, including pledges of better working conditions, »higher shift bonuses, and greater local autonomy. Miners stayed out in other regions, including the Donbass, the far north and on the Polish border in the west,

apparently sceptical about assurances the same concessions applied to them. Moscow radio reported yesterday that miners in the Arctic region of Vorkuta had decided to return to work late yesterday, but reversed the decision suddenly. Only three of the town’s 13 mines were working. The radio said all mines in Inta, west of Vorkuta, were working. “People feel the hope that at last they will receive a timely and concrete answer to all their problems,” it said. ‘But the miners of the neighbouring Vorkuta are still in doubt. They hold rallies and engage in arguments.” At the height of the stoppage up to half a million miners were on strike, the worst industrial unrest to hit the country since the early days of communist rule in the 19205.

Mr Gorbachev made three appeals in as many days for an end to the strike, which he said was jeopardising his “perestroika” programme of econonomic, social and political reform. Yesterday the Prime Minister, Nikolai Ryzhkov, met a delegation of Donbass miners and pledged a big programme of action for the coal industry. His assurances came as deputies at an emergency session of the Soviet Parliament criticised the Communist Party and trade unions for their failure to protect the rights of workers.