"Mass Brawl at Kazakh Oil Field Unveils Labor Dissatisfaction" July 2, 2019

The onshore Tengiz oil field is the largest oil producer in Kazakhstan. Its operator, Tengizchevroil, is a consortium that includes Chevron (50 percent), ExxonMobil (25 percent), Kazmunaigas (20 percent), and LukArco (5 percent). The consortium hires hundreds of contractors and subcontractors for both its operations and its recent expansion program...  A Libyan worker at one of these contractors, Сonsolidated Contracting Engineering and Procurement (CCEP), posted a picture on social media of him beside a young Kazakh girl, igniting the spirits of local workers at the same company, who contested the foreign workers’ behavior and the different treatment that they were awarded. On June 29, around 1,000 workers declared a strike at the construction compound where they worked...

Traditionally, in Kazakhstan as in other resource-rich countries outside the West, foreign workers receive higher salaries and enjoy better benefits than local workers. The Tengiz oil field is no exception. Heated negotiations and scuffles over labor inequalities occurred in the late 1990s and in the mid-2000s...

Nurlan Nogayev, the governor of the Atyrau region, flew to the site, at the border between the Atyrau and Mangystau regions. He admitted that working conditions were at the core of the labor conflict. “This problem arose due to different working conditions, a systemic issue that both Tengizchevroil and its contractors must address,” Nogayev told the press...

Local workers claimed that, besides receiving inferior salaries compared to their foreign peers at the site, they were subject to different treatment: They were assigned less comfortable living spaces and were fed with food of “worse quality” at the company’s canteen. Most of the reactions on social media talked of a bubble ready to burst, the selfie being “the last drop” for the local workers... On July 1, Tengizchevroil said in a note that the situation was “stable,” and that the company would work with the local government in the investigation through a special commission.