Employees of Ukrainian ferroalloy companies appealed to International and European Trade Union Confederations with a request to help to protect rights of Ukrainian workers - metallurgists.

It is said in the open letter of “Ukraine Regional Labor Movement” public organization, which represents interests of employees of a range of the Ukrainian ferroalloy companies. UNIAN has a text of the letter at its disposal.

“We have to appeal to you because of the situation at the Zaporozhye Ferroalloy Plant (ZFP), whose employees are members of the Ukrainian public organization "Ukraine regional labor movement". Because of a formal approach to tariff setting by the Ukrainian regulatory authorities the enterprise has a mass reduction of the workers. By formal reasons ZZF has been transferred into the second class of power consumption. This led to an increase of expenses on energy by 40%. At the same time Ukrainian ferroalloy enterprises pay for electricity 2-2.5 more than their foreign competitors. As a result, Ukrainian products are being displaced by foreign production in the domestic market of ferroalloys. 1400 employees, who represented 39.5% of the number of ZFP employees, were involuntary dismissed. The average salary of the workers was forcedly cut by 20%”, it is said in this open letter.

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The authors of the letter draw attention of authoritative international trade union organizations to the fact that employees of ZFP,  under support of the trade union of the company, have appealed to authorities several times with a request to settle an issue concerning cost of electricity for company, but they did not receive an answer.

In particular, representatives of the main institutions did not react to economically grounded offer to introduce a special tariff on electricity for companies, which due to technological reasons consume large amounts of electricity (expenditures on electricity make up about 45% in cost price of production of ferroalloys).

“Without the active participation of authoritative international trade union organizations in Ukraine is impossible to solve the vital problems of workers-trade union members. Proceeding from the above mentioned we appeal to you in order to intervene in the situation, help to end the violations of rights of workers - union members of ZFP, together with us to oppose the further deterioration of the situation of ZFP workers”, it is said in the letter sent to International and European Trade Union Confederations.

A full variant of the letter is here