photo - TVP

Hundreds of miners stormed the offices of copper giant KGHM in Lubin, south-west Poland Thursday morning, demanding pay rises across the board.

Unions want more than the 4.6 percent rise offered by Europe’s second largest copper miner, which sees its profit doubling this year to a record 8.4 billion zloty (2.1 billion euro).

KGHM expects its 18,500 employees’ average monthly salary to exceed 9,000 zloty (2,700 euros) two and a half times the Polish average, but workers want 300 zloty a month more.

According to the head of the Trade Union for Copper Industry Workers, the demonstration is a “continuation of the negotiations on the planned employment changes.”

Earlier, workers stormed the offices shouting “thieves” and “give us our 300 zloty!”. However, when the Chairman of KGHM, Herbert Wirth came out to try and appease the crowd, the workers started to throw eggs and coins at him.

In a press statement, Wirth wrote that “this year the average pay [KGHM] will go up by 300 zloty to land in at over 9,000 zloty for the first time in history. Not even our collegaues in Upper Silesia [a centre for coal mining in Poland] earn that kind of money.”

The extra 300 zloty rise would amount to the equivalent of an additional expenditure of 200 million zloty for the company per annum.

In the past ten years, wages at KGHM have gone up by 106.6 percent. Taking inflation into account, the real rise amounts to 75.5 percent. (jb)

Source: IAR/PAP/Reuters