Gukovo miners demand to provide them with coal

The miners have held a picket today, demanding to allocate coal for heating their houses.

According to organizers, the picket was 47 people strong and took place in Gukovo, near Culture House of the mine "Rostovskaya", the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the miners, who worked at the mines of the "Kingcoal" Company in the Rostov Region, demand to pay wage arrears. According to the calculations run by the initiative group, the Company's debt to the miners 374 million roubles.

Today, the picketers have demanded to provide them with coal. According to their stories, "it suddenly became very frosty in the city; at night the air temperature drops down -12°C." Many miners "have neither coal nor money to buy it."

Tatiana Avachova, a member of the miners' initiative group, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that Vyacheslav Kolyuzhin, a member of the local miners' trade union, contacted the bosses of the mines operating in the Rostov Region, asking them to help miners of the "Kingcoal" Company.

According to Tatiana, the managers of four Rostov mines "appealed to the owners asking them to allow granting some 'humanitarian' coal to the freezing Gukovo miners."

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.