Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko held a meeting on Tuesday with representatives of mining groups. She noted that on this day parliament voted for the law on the prestige of mining work and changes to the 2008 State Budget. “The government, as it promised the coal industry workers, held Miner’s Day in the Verkhovna Rada,” noted the PrimeMinister.

Yulia Tymoshenko assured miners that “these draft laws won’t be empty noise,” and added that their presence in the hall forced parliamentarians to focus on this issue and vote for the law as a whole.

“Today you – not we – did something huge for the coal sector by coming here and putting pressure on parliament,” stressed the Prime Minister.

According to Tymoshenko, the law envisages increasing salaries for workers in the sector by 30% over the minimum, for which the government has allocated 486 million hyrvnias in subsidies.

She also promised miners that they will raise prices for power generating coal by 20-25%. “This money will also be spent on salaries,” said the Premier. She also noted prices for coking coal have already been increased 1.9 times and for energetic coal by 1.4 times.

The Prime Minister commissioned the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, deputies, and trade unions to oversee the payment of salaries to miners in accordance with the new law. “We’ll need to check every miner’s pay to make sure it has increased. Our task is to make sure this happens and to check the salary of everyone who works in a mine,” stressed the Head of Government.

The Prime Minister also said that banks will provide 3.1 billion hryvnias under state guarantees that will be distributed among mines that need capital investment and technical retooling. “This will give us the opportunity to significantly increase output and set the groundwork for returning coal production to levels we saw at the start of the 1990s. This is our joint goal,” stressed Yulia Tymoshenko.

According to the changes to the budget, 100 million hryvnias will be used to pay interest on loans. The Cabinet also thought about the children of miners. Children from families with a long length of mining service or whose parents have died and are attending university on a commercial basis will be transferred to a state form of education. According to the Tymoshenko, the government will also initiate introducing hourly wages, which will be higher than the current earnings.

Tymoshenko also expressed hope that by the end of the week they will succeed in increasing the Pension Fund by 4.5 billion hryvnias for miners. She also noted that regardless of whether or not the Verkhovna Rada passes the respective decision, pensions for miners will increase.

As reported, on Tuesday the Verkhovna Rada passed the Law “On Introducing Changes to the 2008 State Budget and Several Other Laws,” which increases financing for the coal industry from the state budget by 568 million hryvnias.

The law calls for 468 million hryvnias to be allocated for increasing the minimum wage in the coal sector and 100 million hyrvnias for reducing the credit interest.

In addition, the law envisages providing state guarantees for retooling state coal enterprises in the amount of 3.1 billion hryvnias.

The Verkhovna Rada also passed the Law “On Increasing the Prestige of Mining Work.”

Material from the KMU Press Service, UNIAN