Thousands of miners from Romania's mountainous Jiu valley marched through the streets of Petrosani for the fourth successive day on Thursday in a pay protest, after the collapse of talks with the economy ministry. Local media said some 5,000 miners from all seven Jiu valley mines took part, and a police spokesman said they had threatened to block the main road from Petrosani, their company's base, to the capital Bucharest, 340 kms (210 miles) to the south-east.
"As on previous days the protest was initially static, in the courtyard of the CNH, before the miners marched through Petrosani and headed for the national road," Nicolae Raducu, spokesman of the Hunedoara county riot police, said on Thursday. "My colleagues have tried to persuade them to turn back but failed and the miners have been standing peacefully at the crossroads for the past two hours."
The miners' unions were a potent political force in the early 1990s, when the state-owned industry employed almost half a million people, and many blamed violent miners' riots in Bucharest for the slowness of Romania's transition to democracy after the 1989 anti-communist revolution. The miners' influence has shrunk considerably since the industry restructured in the late 1990s, leading to large-scale layoffs, rampant unemployment, poverty and environmental degradation from which the Jiu valley region is still suffering.
The Jiu valley mines are managed by the state-owned National Hard Coal Company (CNH), a loss-making, highly subsidised firm that now employs just under 8,000 people. It is expected to lay off more staff under Romania's 5 billion euro aid package led by the International Monetary Fund.
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