Miners at Poland's JSW strike against cost cuts

Unions protest after agreements dissolved

WARSAW (Reuters) — Trade unions at the European Union's biggest coking coal producer JSW have started strikes against the company's plans to cut costs, union representatives said on Wednesday.

Miners want the dismissal of JSW Chief Executive Jaroslaw Zagorowski after he dissolved agreements with the company's unions. They also want the company to withdraw its plans to fire nine union representatives responsible for launching protests in January.

"We are beginning strikes at JSW, hoping that our colleagues from other mines will join," a spokesman at one of coal mining unions said. He did not say how long the stoppages were expected to last.

JSW spokeswoman Katarzyna Jablonska-Bajer said the company's daily loss from a protest at all its mines would be some 30 million zlotys ($8 million). "But we do not know yet the unions' detailed protest plans," she said.

JSW, which employs more than 20,000 miners, fell to a 305 million zloty loss over the first nine months of last year, largely because of falling coal prices. The company dissolved its labour agreements with trade unions, aiming to cut labour costs

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