I have just returned from my seventh trip driving supplies from Wales to Ukraine to support the Ukrainian miners’ union, many of whose members are currently fighting Russian forces.
These units need military equipment, medical kit, drones, power packs and rations on a daily basis – and Welsh political parties, businesses, trade unions and individuals have stumped up to provide it.
I’m the Senned member for Pontypridd, on the edge of the Rhondda Valley, heart of the traditional coal mining area of South Wales.
Officials from the local NUM and Bectu unions, Alun Davies (the Senned member for Blaenau Gwent – another historic coal mining district) and I drove pick-up trucks and equipment 2,000 miles across Europe, to the mining town of Pavlograd in the east of Ukraine.
Solidarity means showing your face and demonstrating to Ukrainian miners and trade unionists that they are not alone in fighting Russian fascism.
More than 30 people were injured in Pavlograd in May, when a Russian missile attack hit the town. Yet, when I was there a few weeks later, a strange normality had returned to this predominantly Russian-speaking city in the western Donbas.
Eight coal mines are still working, with the support of 15,000 miners. Employee numbers were closer to 20,000 before the Russian invasion, but 5,000 miners are now fighting on the front line. They have lost 260 men so far, but are adamant they will win.
We handed over the Isuzu pick-up truck to a deputy battalion commander who had come straight from the Bakhmut front where Ukrainian forces are – slowly and painfully – advancing. He immediately took the vehicle back to the front, where it will be used to deliver supplies and provide support to the wounded. He is also a coal miner, from Bakhmut, as are most of his comrades.
Support has been growing as UK trade unions recognise the anti-labour and fascistic nature of Putin’s regime
Support for this kind of solidarity has been growing among UK trade unionists. There were attempts from the old Stalinist left and other purportedly leftist groups to undermine such support – but they’re in an increasingly isolated and minority position.
The Ukraine Solidarity Campaign has been instrumental in working with trade unions in the UK to develop closer links and to provide direct support to their brothers and sisters in Ukrainian unions.
Support has been growing as trade unions here recognise the anti-labour and fascistic nature of Putin’s regime. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is continuing its 30-year political and social links with the Ukrainian miners’ union and its leaders in Pavlograd. Indeed, the NUM stepped in right at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion last year, providing money for vehicles and technical equipment.
The GMB has also spoken out in support of Ukrainian trade unions and donated money. PCS, the union for civil servants, is planning a delegation to Ukraine. Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers union ASLEF, was meeting unions and human rights groups in Kyiv 48 hours before the invasion. And now UCU (University and College Union), the CWU (Communication Workers Union) and various branches of public sector unions Unison and Unite are all getting involved.
However, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has been disappointingly slow, in my opinion, in coordinating solidarity across the UK labour movement. This has perhaps reflected its own internal divisions, including apologists for Putin. The latter have promoted the Kremlin line that the war is somehow either the fault of NATO, or is an ‘internal civil war’ between Ukrainian and Russian speakers in Ukraine. Both these narratives, even among some of their propagators, are increasingly seen as little more than farcical propaganda.
It is Ukrainian workers and trade unions, alongside the country’s armed forces, who will enable Ukraine to win – and they are convinced they will. Railway, hospital, communications and public sector workers are keeping the country functioning. Electricians and energy workers are keeping the transport network and the power stations running, and miners are keeping the power stations supplied with coal. In Zaporizhzhia, nuclear energy workers are doing all they can to keep Europe’s largest power station safe – despite occupation and maltreatment by Russian forces.
Now is the time for UK trade unions and the TUC to go to Ukraine, meet their brothers and sisters face to face, to provide direct support and express international solidarity.
The author writes here in a personal capacity.
