Kazakhstan: Oil workers persist with strike despite firings, 18 December 2023

Employees of an oil services company in western Kazakhstan are pushing ahead with industrial action in their demand for improved working conditions despite waves of firings.

Around 500 workers at West Oil Software, a company based in the Mangystau region, reportedly downed their tools and began holding rallies early last week. A core demand is for employees to hired by subsidiaries of state-owned oil and gas company KazMunaiGas, or KMG, which they say would ensure higher salaries...

West Oil Software has shown no intention to de-escalate. Seven employees were fired on December 13 over what the company has described as an illegal industrial action. Another 19 workers were laid off later in the week. The firings were sanctioned by the Karakiyansk district court on December 11.

West Oil Software put out a statement on December 18 to say that it is fully complying with the requirements of an earlier collective bargaining agreement and that striking workers are being dishonest in their demands.

“The company provides workers with wages that exceed the wages of other oil service companies,” the company was cited as saying by Aktau-based outlet Lada.kz.

West Oil Software workers, meanwhile, argue that the company is being disingenuous in claiming that it pays salaries averaging around 735,000 tenge ($1,600)...

Another complaint is that laborers are having to make do with superannuated machinery. Following an earlier strike in 2021, the company pledged that this shortcoming would be addressed, but nothing was done in the end, workers say.

Koshchanov said that only 28 of the 98 vehicles used by the company have been found to be fit for purpose.

“The guys are risking their lives every time they come to work. The equipment is so worn out that you can see the road through the bottom,” a driver at West Oil Software, Sandibek Kosanov, told Azattyk...

Speaking at an event on economic development in Mangystau, Tokayev noted that 80 percent of labor disputes in the country occur in that region. He pinned the blame for that on companies.

“Some managers of private companies are pushing workers to go on strike,” Tokayev said. “They don’t give the allocated money to the workers, but instead put it in their own pockets.”