One call to the trade union about the working conditions of the miners would have been enough to avoid the tragedy in the Listvyazhnaya mine. Ivan Mokhnachuk, chairman of the Russian Independent Trade Union of Coal Industry Workers, spoke about this in an interview with Izvestia on Saturday, December 4.
The Listvyazhnaya miners knew about the increased methane level, but continued to work under the threat of dismissal. Mokhnachuk said that such situations in the industry are rare enough, suggesting that workers have nowhere else to go: people need to support their families, and miners are paid well.
“To a large extent, everything depends on where this enterprise is located. If you take the village of Gramoteino, where the Listvyazhnaya mine is located, then, of course, it is nearby, people are used to working there. I do not exclude (we will figure it out) that the employer could fire two, three, four, five people there for showing some kind of dissatisfaction, so that others would be discouraged. And, left without work, they understand perfectly well that they need to feed the family, they need to run somewhere, look for work, and then everything seems to be near … and people, of course, held on to this workplace. I want to say that if you take a salary, say, in the range of 30-40 thousand rubles, and they had up to 100 thousand rubles and even more, then, of course, people held on to such work, ”he suggested.
Mokhnachuk added that the proceedings are now underway, and those involved in the tragedy will be punished. He characterized the negligence of all the perpetrators as a crime.
“Because they knew that the mine was gas, there was a lot of gas, they conducted double-entry bookkeeping, as the Prosecutor General said yesterday, and the true accounting of methane gas (sensors) was behind the screen, and duplicate sensors were displayed on the screen, which showed the normal gas situation. And it is clear that the same inspection, which was just a few days before the explosion, they came, looked at the monitor … everything is fine. Well, yes, they admitted negligence, and maybe it will be criminal in this case, that they did not go to the face and did not check on the spot, did not make sure that one was consistent with the other. But at the same time, outwardly everything looked normal, ”he stressed.
Also, according to the chairman of the trade union, Listvyazhnaya is a modern mine with good equipment and high rates of coal production.
Mokhnachuk noted that the trade union does not absolve itself of the blame: “It means that somewhere they didn’t work, they didn’t give people the opportunity to come and tell about violations and working conditions”. He added that it is enough just to call him directly, and any problem at the mine will immediately be dealt with.
“Believe me, if someone contacted me, we would put things in order there very quickly. I can give examples: the same Kuzbass, miners from the Kuzbass mine called at night. I immediately call the chief, at night (four hours difference with Moscow), of the Federal Labor Inspectorate of the Kemerovo Region. He knows that I have a direct road to the head of Rostekhnadzor of Russia, to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia. At night he sent three of his mining inspectors to the mine, they came, checked, and we removed this problem immediately. If they had called, we would have stopped this mine for one or two, and until we figured it out, the mine would not work, there would be no tragedy. But, unfortunately, we have what we have, ”he stressed.
The chairman of the trade union expressed grief for the dead miners: “Unfortunately, we have lost our friends, comrades and families, we have lost our loved ones. This is a very big tragedy. “
The version that the SDS-Ugol company has huge debts and that the management allegedly tried to compensate for the losses by increasing production at any cost, Mokhnachuk immediately denied.
“This mine, this asset of SDS is profitable. But SDS is a diversified company that has construction, agriculture and trade, there is still some kind of alcoholic beverage production, many, many other market segments (businesses). I don’t know them, to be honest. As for coal, the company had coal, it was not unprofitable, it was profitable, ”he assured.
Mokhnachuk also said that he did not personally know the general director of the Listvyazhnaya mine, Sergei Makhrakov, but he knew that he, like the entire SDS-Ugol company, always responded to the social requests of the trade union: the miners’ children were allocated funds for treatment, who were vaccinated by the former miners were given gifts, etc.
Returning to his words about solving problems with the working conditions of miners, the chairman added that in such proceedings with “cunning” employers, they bring cases to the Supreme Court of Russia. As is the case now in the Listvyazhnaya mine.
The incident at the mine happened on the morning of November 25. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, there was an explosion. The accident killed 51 people, including five rescuers. 99 people were injured. After what happened in the region, an emergency regime was introduced.
On the fact of the incident, a criminal case was initiated under Part 2 of Art. 217 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Violation of industrial safety requirements for hazardous production facilities, resulting in the death of a person by negligence”), as well as a criminal case on the fact of negligence of employees of the Rostekhnadzor department.
On December 3, it became known that the lawyers of all the defendants in the mine accident case appealed against their arrest. The appeals were filed by the lawyers of the director of the mine, his deputy and the head of the section, as well as two employees of Rostekhnadzor.
Watch a report on the accident in the Listvyazhnaya mine on REN TV on Sunday, December 5, on the Dobrov on Air program at 23:00.
Source: IZ
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
