The Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nermin Đindić, accepted the invitation of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Mine Workers of FBiH to convene a meeting today of all actors who can help unblock the accounts of the Subsidiary Company Brown Coal Mine Zenica, it was confirmed to Fena news agency by the president of the Independent Trade Union of Mine Workers FBiH Sinan Husić.
The meeting should be attended by representatives of the management of the ruling company Elektroprivreda BiH and ZD RMU Zenica and the mayor of Zenica, Fuad Kasumović, who blocked the company’s account again in the middle of last month because of the debt of the Zenica mine for late interest in the amount of about 3,000,000 BAM.
“Minister Đindić accepted the request of the umbrella union of FBiH mines and today at 1 or 2 pm he will moderate a meeting to which all actors who can help in solving this situation will be invited. The minister asked that I and my colleague from the ZD RMU union attend the meeting. Zenica Elvedin Avdić, which we accepted. It is less important to us whether the meeting will be at 13:00 or 14:00, the important thing is to reach an agreement and to unblock the account of the Zenica mine so that the workers will receive their salaries, and then to restore production. “, points out Husić, who hopes that all the invited actors will respond to today’s meeting and that an agreement will be reached.
Zenica miners gathered this morning for a roll call in their plants and are waiting for the outcome of the meeting, but they have not yet resumed production. The miners went into labor disobedience on March 24, and from Monday, March 27 to Thursday evening, about 15 members of the Trade Union Board of ZD RMU Zenica went on strike and hunger strike in their premises in the House of Miners.
Last Tuesday, March 28, the first protest was held in front of the ZD RMU Zenica building and the City Administration of the City of Zenica, and on Wednesday there was a one-hour warning strike in which the miners of the remaining six coal mines from the EPBiH Concern entered. On Thursday, a second strike was held in front of the ZD RMU Zenica Administration building and the City Administration of the City of Zenica, and on that day the miners addressed the session of the City Council of Zenica, which unanimously supported the urgent solution to their problem and the unblocking of their accounts.
It was then agreed that the EPBiH, RMU Zenica and the City Administration of Zenica would agree on the terms of the agreement for the repayment of the aforementioned debt in installments within the next 30 days. The city of Zenica did not express itself according to the conclusions of the City Council of Zenica, so the miners spent the night from Thursday to Friday in Trg BiH in front of the Zenica City Administration building, and on Friday from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. they also blocked the M-17 highway and protested at the intersection in front Mayor Kasumović’s house in the Perin Han settlement.
They unblocked the road on Friday afternoon and went home, and the union undertook to try to organize a meeting of all actors and to determine the continuation of the account unblocking process during the weekend.
A decision is also ready, as announced by Husić, on new one-hour warning strikes, which, if no agreement is reached on the unblocking of the Zenica mine, should be held again tomorrow at seven o’clock until the Zenica miners receive their salary for March and a hot meal for January.
