Private mining companies Victorino Alonso and Lamelas Viloria paid off about a third of an estimated Eur367 million ($488 million) in outstanding salary owed to its workers Thursday, CCOO union representative Juan Carlos Alvarez told Platts in a telephone interview Friday.
Neither company could be reached for comment.
As many as 9,000 workers, mostly in the regions of Leon, Asturias and Aragon went on a two-day strike this week to support fellow union members and protest against proposed EU cuts to national subsidies to the coal industry.
Two further days of strikes are scheduled for the end of the month.
"All of the workers are back in the workplace today after a 100% turnout for the strike," said Alvarez who, along with five other union heads, has locked himself in the country's industry ministry as part of a week-long hunger-strike.
"The workers who have not been paid are continuing the strike that has already lasted two weeks, however," he added.
The companies said Tuesday in a statement to the press that they had obtained external financing to pay off unpaid salaries from July, adding that they were waiting to receive a payment from the state related to strategic reserves before they could settle up with the unpaid workers.
EC DECISION
The Spanish mining industry is awaiting a decision by the European Commission that may ratify or block a proposed new law forcing utilities in Spain to burn local coal for electricity generation.
Spanish businessman Victorino Alonso, who besides owning Union Minera del Norte and Coto Minero Cantabrico is also the head of the Carbunion lobby group, said in a statement published this week by Europa Press that any ruling to halt state subsidies to the sector would cause a wave of closures and leave thousands of workers "in the streets."
Alonso-owned companies produce about 40% of Spain's annual 10 million mt coal output.
The Spanish coal industry, faced with a strong anti-carbon agenda at national and European level, has been unable to compete with imported coal supplies that are more competitive than locally mined product.
CCOO's Alvarez said the latest estimates are that Spain's stockpile of nationally produced coal totals about 8.5 million mt, equivalent to nine months of production.
"It's just sat there. There is no trade," he said.
As Spain's government has driven forward the development of the renewable-energy industry, gas and coal-fired production has suffered and plants have effectively become "back-up" facilities, he said.
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