Of 90,000 miners in the Jiu Valley, 35,000 decided to stop working on the evening of 1 August. Those at Lupeni were immediately joined by their fellow miners from nearby locations such as Uricani, Paroșeni, Aninoasa and Petrila. A list of 17 demands, approved by the strikers as a body, was drawn up by the strike leaders, Ioan Constantin (Costică) Dobre (b. 1947) and Gheorghe Maniliuc, who were aided by Dumitru Iacob, Ion Petrilă, Dumitru Dumitrașcu, Mihai Slavovschi the engineer Jurcă and the Amariei brothers. They requested that President Nicolae Ceaușescu personally come to Lupeni to receive their demands and negotiate with them. Speeches containing demands were made and the Valley was in a state of maximum tension.