Albania's communist government, faced with a spreading miners' strike, has promised better pay and conditions but warned the state cannot afford further concessions, the official news agency said Wednesday.
The government agreed Tuesday to meet some demands of the miners, who began striking at the Valias mine near the Albanian capital of Tirana over the weekend, the ATA news agency said in a dispatch monitored in Vienna.The concessions include pay increases of 30 percent to 50 percent, earlier retirement, free transportation to work and a pledge to provide 168 new apartments this year, ATA reported.