Some 131 workers at a brown coal mine in southwestern Bulgaria started an underground strike on Tuesday in an attempt to renegotiate the conditions of their planned layoffs, union officials said. The men refused to leave the 400-metre (1,300 feet) deep Babino mine, part of the Bobov Dol mining complex, when their shift ended on Tuesday morning.
Up to 700 miners are due to be laid off after management announced it would shut its two underground mines due to their high cost and low efficiency. "The strikers insist that the management re-inspects the coal reserves and continues production," the chairman of the Podkrepa union miners' federation Vladimir Topalov told public BNR radio.
"They also want to receive all of their delayed salaries and food vouchers. We are currently negotiating to re-direct part of the laid-off miners to other mines." Babino confirmed Tuesday it was negotiating with the striking miners. Coal production in Bulgaria in 2015 was 35.9 million tonnes, up 14.7 percent from 2014, according to energy ministry data, with the entire mining sector employing around 23,600 people.