Hunger strike underground: Give us what’s ours or give us death – say the miners

By Alfred Kola

The miners of a small town in northern Albania have chosen a hard way to protest against the refusal of a concessionary company, operating the ferrochrome mines and plants in the area, to raise wages and improve working conditions. They have gone on hunger strike in one of the galleries 1 400 meters below ground. Although today is the 14th day of the strike and the health conditions of the miners have deteriorated to critical levels, no settlement seems achievable at this point. The management of the self-styled Austrian concessionary company, ACR, has publicly stated and repeated that it declines to talk business with the union and considers it a terrorist group led by self-centered individuals. Although the company says it is ready to negotiate directly with the strikers, until three days ago, it was totally opposed to the demands of the miners and their 40-days protest for better working conditions and higher wages. The hunger strike participants have, on their part, refused any attempts to question the authority of the union and say that they are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. 

The disputes over the authority of the union and the unwillingness to compromise is turning this fight for a better living into a high-stakes game of brinkmanship, that is endangering the lives of the miners, who are now in their last strengths before falling into a coma, from which they might never wake up again.

Determined to be impartial, I can’t help but notice that the callous indifference of the concessionary company ACR toward the demands and hardships of the miners, and the miserable working conditions in those rusted 18th-century-like mines and plants, reeks of corruption. The rumors are floating around that European high-ranking politicians are involved in the mining industry of the poorest country in Europe.

The hunger strike was miners’ last resort. They protested for more than a month in Bulqiza and capital Tirana, but the company refused to even listen to their demands.

But the miners have declared that they are going the whole nine yards with their demands and will see them through to the end.