Budryk Update

On Thursday Jan. 10, a large rally of miners took place in front of Budryk in Ornontowice. Over 1000 people took part in the rally. Besides the miners, there were also some supporters from different unions. Letters of support from Poland and around the world were read to the miners who were in a good fighting mood. Rallies were also held in Warsaw and in Poznan in solidarity with the miners' demands.

At the time of the Thursday rally, management was not to be found in Ornontowice. The Board of JSW, which now controls Budryk, was called to the Ministry of Economy in Warsaw where they were met by a solidarity picket of a few dozen supporters.

Apparently the Ministry has instructed the Board to be even rougher on the miners and Minister Pawlak has shown his true colours. On Friday the miners had a referendum in which they actually decided to agree to a lower wage increase than before which was within the offers already given to the miners. A proposal was sent to the Ministry; all the unions, even those not supporting the strike, agreed to it.

Pawlak answered that the Ministry has "nothing to do with this" and only the Board of JSW can negotiate. However it turns out that now the Board is not even willing to live up to its previous offers. On Monday Jam. 14, after consulting with the Ministry (which has "nothing to do with this"), JSW broke off negotiations and withdrew many of their previous offeres. They withdrew, among other things, its offer to pay miners a one-time lump sum payment of 1500 zl. (slightly less than 400 euros). They won't agree to a raise of even 500 zl. which had already been offered. (The striking miners were demanding 700 zl. to equally wages at JSW.)

The Board of JSW are claiming that it lost so much money during the strike that it cannot afford raises.

Last night/ early this morning, about 150 miners resumed their occupation of the mines 700 meters below ground.

Minister Pawlak, speaking on Radio Zet this morning asked JSW to take "emergency crisis measures", which may be a veiled threat to the strikers. For some time the institution that regulates mining safety has claimed that the strike is causing grave fire hazards in the mine. Pawlak also expressed the opinion that it was "unacceptable" that three "radical unions" could "destabilize the entire coal industry". He also said that it's not acceptable that because of a "very agressive campaign" (the strike), wages would have to be increased 20% and that "we can't give shouting people everything they want".

The strikers demands stem from the fact that the wages in the Budryk mine, which was joined to the JSW mining group, is lower than in other JSW mines, despite the fact that Budryk is profitable and the miners' output is very good. According to the strikers, this is clearly discrimination. It is questionable how this could be treated in court. The Labour Code does not allow such discrimination inside a company, but JSW can argue that workers in different mines within a mining group are not considered workers in the same workplace. This would have to be tested in court but it is not clear that the miners could get a favourable verdict.