The other main demands of the miners included signing a contract that would codify improvements in wages and working conditions and immediate payment of several weeks of back wages. Rado Jovanovic said miners have not had a contract for three years and had been fruitlessly negotiating a collective agreement with officials tied to the Milosevic regime for two years. A number of workers described the difficult conditions they face on the job. After dusk, the open pit is almost completely dark. Only 10 percent of the lighting works.
Miners often have to walk to work for three miles in pitch black because of lack of flashlights.
Uniforms provided by the company are especially necessary in the subzero winter weather, but are supposed to last for four years. Some equipment sits rusting on coal heaps with no parts for repairs, because economic sanctions by Washington and other imperialist powers have made such imports prohibitively expensive over the last decade. Mechanics have to rely on swapping parts from one piece of equipment to another, and on pure ingenuity, to keep the 33-foot digging wheels churning on the mammoth machines, most of which were purchased from east or west Germany. The equipment is old, the newest bought in 1985, and potentially dangerous, workers said. Because of accidents and black lung disease, some 1,300 of the 7,500 miners are now on disability.