The HSE group, Velenje Coal Mine management and miners on strike have reached an agreement on singing an annex to a tripartite contract next week, addressing the issues of coal purchase, power lease as well as the purchase of electricity. Miners of the Velenje mine therefore decided to freeze the week-long strike and returned to work in the mine.
One of the demands of miners on strike included raising the price of coal, which would solve liquidity problems of the Velenje Coal Mine. According to the CEO of HSE Blaž Košorok, the latter is two steps away from bankruptcy. But the price of coal that is due to power the new block of the Šoštanj thermoelectric plant called Teš 6, is set at EUR 2.25 per gigajoule, or else the electricity produced would be too expensive or the already overpaid investment would be even more expensive. The Velenje mine, on the other hand, believes the initially agreed price doesn’t allow for normal functioning of the mine.
Lower salaries are not a solution
The former supervisor of HSE – who, as he puts it, had been removed from the board for disagreeing with the politics lead by HSE and its subsidiary companies – Peter Kralj warns that neither the price of coal nor the salaries of miners that had been continually cut in the past few years, could save the problems of the Velenje-based mine.
“Cutting the salaries leads nowhere. The only thing lowering the salaries achieves is dissatisfaction among workers and lower productivity. Salaries have a marginal share in this problem. Expenses need to be lowered in all areas that are not part of the basic activities of the mine. They should start managing the company on economic principles, without the all kinds of sponsorships, that’s really not hygienic. They would to raise the price so that everything could remain as it is. But we’ll have to pay,” points out Kralj, who thinks the main problem lies in structures that control the power industry and keep draining it, since they’re used to it from the past when monopolies still ruled the power industry.
“The problem is the that management of HSE is incapable of cutting the Gordian knot and hasn’t done anything in the past two years except for waiting and polemicizing. Slovenian power industry needs to be re-structured. If we look at the Velenje pool, Šoštanj thermoelectric plant and Velenje Coal Mine, their operation needs to be rationalized in areas that don’t affect salaries and work safety in the mine. This was the agreement we passed and recommended to the management when I was on HSE’s supervisory board. And then I got dismissed from the board,” adds Kralj.
