Europe

Europe

Albanian miners stage hunger strike for pay rise

27 July 2011 00:38 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Albanian miners, asking for pay rise and better working conditions, staged an underground hunger striker at the Bulqiza mine in northern Albania for the second day in a row on Tuesday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Leaders of the Industry Trade Union said the start of the hunger strike by a group of 30 miners at the depth of 1,400 meters below surface meant the conditions for talks with the DCM DECOmetal employer had now changed.

The miners also blocked local company managers from getting access to their offices on Tuesday.

The miners want a 20-percent rise of their monthly pay. It was said that the miners are paid 500 to 700 U.S. dollars per month in a country where the official minimum salary is about 202 U.S. dollars a month.

Some of the 700 miners, who shut down the mine three weeks ago to force the company to increase their wages, stayed all night outside the entrance of the gallery to support their fasting colleagues.

DCM DECOmetal, the Austrian mining and metal processing company which took full control of the Bulqiza concession in 2007, offered to raise their wages by 10 percent and agreed to sit down to resolve other outstanding demands, but asked them to return to work first.

After a five-day protest in Tirana in front of the economy and energy ministry and Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s office, the miners returned to Bulqiza to start the hunger strike.

The mine, located in a mountainous region about 50 kilometers north of capital Tirana, produces some 70,000 tons of chrome per year.