Miners unhappy with partial payment execution

Dissatisfied with the execution of only 68 percent of the salary, the miners of Stan Tërgu, from last Friday, went on strike. They say that they will continue the strike until the full salaries appear in their accounts. However, on Friday afternoon, representatives of the "Trepça" Trade Union announced the return to work at midnight between Friday and Saturday

Bajram Bala has been working at the "Trepça" Flotation Mining Unit in Stan Tërg for 43 years, and since Friday of last week, he, together with other colleagues, has gone on strike. 

The full non-execution of salaries had caused him and his colleagues to refuse to show up at work. 

Bala, who takes care of the schooling of three student children, says that this is not the first time that miners have not been paid their full wages.

"We are having problems with salaries every month. It is not the full salary, they have executed only 68 percent and the part they have fired is not enough. They have told us that we will pay the salary, the workers are saying that on the day when the salary comes out, they are ready to start work", he said. 

The member of the leadership of the Trepca Trade Union, Gani Osmani, also spoke about the strike on Friday. In an interview on KTV's "60 Minutes", Osmani said that the director of the "Stan Gërgu" mine had a meeting with the Minister of Economy, Artane Rizvanolli, with whom they agreed that the work in the "Trepça" mine to start on Friday with the third shift.

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"According to the information I have, today (Friday) the third shift will start working, while from tomorrow, the work will take place in three shifts", said Osmani, adding that the miners are being forced to hold the strike.

The representative of the Independent Union of Miners has reiterated that their conditions are worse than any European country. He called for work to improve the conditions.

"We have promises to improve the conditions, but none have been fulfilled. We are without health insurance, without basic conditions, with outdated tools, danger all the time, smoke, air humidity", Osmani declared.

Bashkim Murati, head of the "Trepça" Enterprise, promised that the miners' request will be fulfilled on Friday of next week, as he explained the reasons for the full non-execution of salaries.

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"Problems over the years in Trepça, such as the lack of capital investments, have brought it to this state, as a result we have arrived at the state we are in. The full execution of the wages for the miners will be realized next Friday. Not exploiting the ore, not treating the ore costs us about 55-60 thousand euros, which potentially for these 6 days we have lost about 300 thousand euros, as much as the value of the obligations we have to the miners at the moment, 289 thousand euros", Murat said.

The miners went on strike for several days in April this year. Because of the salaries, they were locked up for ten days in the horizons of Trepca last October, refusing food. 
The strike at that time was stopped by an agreement reached with some deputies of the ruling party, in which it was foreseen that the salaries of the miners would not be delayed more than the 10th of each month.