[Summary translation prepared by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

Miners in Kryvyi Rih protesting underground for over a month due to low wages. Their families being followed by unknown people, management of the plant calls protest a crime - reportage, 06 October 2020

On September 3, workers of Oktyabrska mine of Kryvyi Rih Iron Ore Plant started an indefinite underground protest - they demand higher wages and complain about difficult working conditions. Thirty-two miners did not come to the surface after the shift, blocking the operation of the mine. In a few days, they were joined by the miners of three more mines of the same combine, in total almost four hundred people protested underground. The leaders of the plant first accused the protesters of losses due to the layoff and threatened with a lawsuit, and now they promise to raise wages up to 25 percent. The miners do not trust the management, and the families of some of them have reported pressure and surveillance.

Mykhailo Volynets, a people's deputy and head of the Independent Trade Union of Miners, is convinced that miners' families are persecuted by the plant's management.