On July 17, the Chairman of the Lugansk regional state administration – the head of the regional military-civil administration Yuri Garbuz held a telephone conversation with the Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine Ihor Nasalyk. Also he held a working meeting with the management of JSC ‘Lisichanskugol’ and the chairmen of trade union organizations.

In this way the Governor reacted on the miners strike, left under the ground, demanding repayment of multi-million salary arrears.

We would remind that critical situation with nonpayment of wages, which brought to miners strike, developed in JSC ‘Lisichanskugol’. So, the protest action under the ground, involving more than fifty people, has been continuing from June 15 in mine named by Kapustin.

For today, the arrears of the salary fund is 135.4 million UAH (~$5.2 mln.) (December 2015, December 2016 and the current year), the Regional State Administration notes.

Ihor Nasalyk sured that funds to ‘Lisichanskugol’ will be transferred in the first ten days of August. Also, the Minister ordered to develop a plan of increase in coal production. During working meeting of the head of the region with the heads of mines and their trade union organizations discussed ways of implementing this plan and the possibility of optimizing the working resource.

The management of the mines of Melnikov and Kapustin guarantees the increase in coal production 1.5 times as early as September of this year with the prompt allocation of state funds for the technical equipment of mines.

The loss of mines and the accumulation of debts on the wage fund of JSC ‘Lisichanskugol’ were the result of the lack of state support to cover costs of the cost of coal products. Funds for the modernization of the enterprise also don’t stand out. As a result, new mine workings are not carried out, and everything that was prepared exhausts its technical resource. There are also no current assets for the development of the enterprise.

If urgent measures aren’t taken o9n the state level, the threat of closing of JSC ‘Lisichanskugol’ exists. The position of a regional power is not to allow this.

The State Regional Administration applied to the central bodies of a state power for many times, expressing the concern about this situation. Today, letters were sent again with a request to liquidate the debt to the employees of the enterprise.