From Monday, October 23, ten prisoners of Drohobytsk colony No. 40 started working at the “Nadia” mine located near Sosnivka in the Chervonohrad district.
The prisoners will work in the mine for a month in the night, third shift. The mine administration concluded a cooperation agreement with the colony. Ihora Tymochko, director of the Western Interregional Department for the Execution of Criminal Punishments, told LVIV.MEDIA that the prisoners of the colony will work for the first time in a mine in the Lviv region.
The reason why entrepreneurs are forced to use the labor of convicts is economic – there is currently a shortage of miners at the Nadiya mine, so the management of the mine turned to the penitentiary with a request to select volunteers for this work from among the prisoners who have embarked on the path of correction. All prisoners have undergone the necessary professional training, medical examination, received the necessary permits and are now ready to work in slaughterhouses. Prisoners work only in the night shift. An employment agreement has been concluded with each of them, and for their work they will receive the same salary as freelancers. Instead, the Drohobytsk colony will receive a financial reward of 25% of his salary for each employed convict.
Residents of Sosnivka opposed the involvement of prisoners to work in the mine, but their opinion was not taken into account.
“Unfortunately, we lost, we could not convince those on whom it depends not to employ prisoners. We were also unable to find out from the management of the “Nadia” mine under which articles of the criminal code these people were convicted, in order to understand how dangerous they are for the residents of Sosnivka. We are also wary that these prisoners will be given a free settlement and they will walk the streets of our city,” Sosnivka mayor Iryna Kharchuk said in a comment to LVIV.MEDIA.