Miners and energy workers protested in front of the Council of Ministers here on Tuesday under the slogan, "A clear and secure energy future for Bulgaria!" Nearly 6,000 miners and energy workers from the coal mining sector in the country took part in Tuesday’s national march organized by the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) and the Podkrepa Confederation of Labour in the Maritsa East complex, the National Federation of Energy Workers, the National Trade Union Federation of Energy Workers in Bulgaria, the Federation of Independent Miners' Unions, the Miners' Trade Union, and the Energy Federation.
The President of the Podkrepa Confederation of Labour Dimitar Manolov promised to the protesters that together they will be able to make the Government "think about the people and stop obeying the European bureaucrats".
"Worthy Bulgarians, we are the people and we have the right to say what will happen in this country," said CITUB President Plamen Dimitrov, who added that they will not stop until they find politicians who will support them.
The trade unions fear job losses - about 12,000 jobs in the Maritsa East complex with a tendency to become 15,000 after 2030. CITUB fears that up to 100,000 jobs in the sector will be indirectly threatened.
Some of the protesters went in for a meeting with Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov in the Council of Ministers. The group was led by Plamen Dimitrov and Dimitar Manolov.
While the representative group of protesters was negotiating with the Prime Minister, several demands to the government were formulated outside:
Emerging from the meeting with the Prime Minister, Dimitrov said that a State-owned enterprise will be set up by October 15, so that even if a single worker loses their job at the mine, they will be re-employed under the same working conditions, so they will not remain jobless until 2038. The enterprise will be funded regionally under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan for Stara Zagora, Pernik, and Kyustendil.
/RY/
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