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16 July, 2007
A written agreement took effect between strikers at chrome mines and a ferrochrome smelter in Bulqiza, Albania, the ICEM-affiliated Trade Union Federation of Industrial Workers, and Italian-based Darfo SRL, thus ending a month-long strike.
The agreement for hundreds of miners came after intense negotiations on 5 July that involved senior managers of the Italian company, including CEO Dr. Heinz Muller.
It was signed late in the day on 6 July, and workers returned to work on 9 July.
The agreement also came after more than 200 of the miners and their families demonstrated on the steps of Albania’s Parliament in Tirana, as well as at the Ministries of Economy and Energy and Labour and Social Causes there. Those protests occurred two weeks ago.
Parliamentarians, however, avoided the strikers by being driven to the opposite of the building, while the respective government ministers refused to meet with the miners.
The agreement only came about after senior managers of Darfo in northern Italy intervened.
Unfortunately, the dispute was marked by fierce controversy between two unions: the Federation of Industrial Workers, affiliated to the national centre KSSH, and the Albanian Independent Trade Union Miners (SPMSH), an affiliate of the dissolved WFIW affiliate now seeking global union affiliation. Both groups claim to represent the chrome miners and smelting workers, with SPMSH claiming it had signed a similar ageement with the company in early June.
Both contracts are said to contain pay increases of 30%. Further negotiations will occur in the weeks ahead, and another 20% pay increase will be discussed. If that is won for the Bulqiza miners, their wage demands of 50% will be realised.
The miners have demanded wage increases in each of the past six years, but these demands were ignored by both the company and Albanian government officials.
Safety, working conditions, and housing – equally important demands by miners in this dispute – will also be discussed in the weeks ahead.
The June strikes by workers lined up with the Federation of Industrial Workers also included hunger strikes that began on 25 June. Thirty miners at a time embarked on such strikes, with the number of them needing to be hospitalised. The demonstrations in Tirana by the union and KSSH also brought a sharp focus to the dispute.
In the negotiated end to the strike, managers of Darfo, and its Austrian-based trading partner, Deco Metals, agreed that no miner would be disciplined for striking, and all miners would be paid for the full period of the strike, which began on 1 June.
In 2001, Darfo signed a pair of 30-year license agreements with the Albanian government to mine and process chromium and iron ore in the Balkan country.