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7 April, 2008
In Russia’s Sverdlovsk Region, a ten-day sit-in strike by 96 bauxite miners 800 metres below ground ended on Friday, 4 April, as the world’s largest aluminium producer – United Company RusAl – agreed to dialogue and serious attention to strikers’ demands. Those strikers, members of one of four mining unions at RusAl’s Sevuralboksitruda subsidiary, the Independent Miners’ Union of Russia, began the strike at the Krasnaya Shapochka (Little Red Riding Hood) Mine on 26 March. Their resolve was furthered on 1 April when they undertook a hunger strike on 1 April.
The company, privately-owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, shut five other bauxite mines in the North Ural Mountains on 28 March, curtailing wages for 5,000 other miners in an effort to divide miners and pressure the striking union. That failed, with members of the other unions signing pledges of support for the strikers, as well as sending food and other supplies to them, until they started the hunger strike.
An annual pay increase put in place late last year for all the unionised miners of the region by RusAl paled next to the company’s vast profits and the 15% inflation rate of the region. The strikers of the Independent Miners’ Union sent a list of ten demands to the surface on 27 March. Those demands included a 50% pay increase on top of the average salary of US$760 per month, an end to weekend work, resumption of a company halted social welfare programme that took effect 1 January, and investment in other mines of the region.
On 3 April, RusAl went to court to get the strike declared illegal. However, a pledge to meet their demands, and a promise of amnesty to the strikers, brought an end to the strike on Friday morning. The mine, located near the central Russian town of Severuralsk, is a former operation of Russian aluminium producer SUAL International, which together with Glencore of Switzerland’s alumina assets merged with RusAl a year ago.