More RUSAL bauxite Workers Join Hunger Strike

YEKATERINBURG, April 14 – Sixty-six miners at a bauxite complex owned by United Company RUSAL ( UC RUSAL), last week declared a hunger strike for higher pay with 8 more joined in the strike on Monday. RUSAL considers the industrial action is illegal and has filed a lawsuit against the miners, a spokeswoman for the trade union federation of the Sverdlovsk region said. All five mines of the Sevuralboksitruda have been stopped since the end of March after 97 workers refused to come out of one of the mines, called Krasnaya Shapochka (Little Red Riding Hood). RUSAL at the time said it was ready to talk to workers after they came out, and the workers resurfaced at early April after a reconciliation committee had been created. RUSAL said in a statement that it issued an order on Friday to restart work at the mines, following repeated demands by workers. But on Sunday, 74 workers declared a hunger strike. "These actions are aimed at destructing the restart of work at the mines," a RUSAL spokeswoman said. RUSAL said earlier that it had sufficient bauxite, the raw material from which alumina and subsequently aluminium is made, to proceed without interruption. COPYRIGHT All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of WAM News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of WAM.