Miners from North Moravia came together in Ostrava, to protest against impending wage cuts. Management of the indebted mining company OKD has announced it is seeking a 20% reduction in wage cuts. In a draft collective agreement for 2014-2018 it presented to the trade unions, the company is cutting all bonuses, 13th and 14th month salaries and contributions into private health insurance and pension plans. The miners are fighting to keep their wages and fear more cuts are to come. Management has already agreed to 30-50% cuts in their own wages while administrative staff was reduced by 250 people and accepted a 10% wage cut. On the same day as the protest ODK’s parent company in Amsterdam, New World Resources (NWR) announced it is closing down one of the sites, the Paskov mine, laying off 3,000 miners. The Prime Minister reacted publicly to an ODK-request that the government does not intend to save the plant.
English: http://www.lse.co.uk/macroeconomicNews ...
http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/miners-draw-attention-to-their-plight ...
http://praguemonitor.com/2013/09/06/okd-presents-new-agreement-draft ...
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.