MAY 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 140 people working for the oil services company KazStroyService have gone on strike in west Kazakhstan demanding an increase in wages, media reported. Kazakhstan is sensitive to strikes. In 2011, 16 people died during fighting between protesters and police at a strike in west Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)
MARCH 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The government of the Karaganda region has said that ArcelorMittal’s temporary move to knock 25% off its workers’ wages at its steel plant in Temirtau last month was illegal, the Tengrinews website reported. It has filed a lawsuit against ArcelorMittal, one of Kazakhstan’s biggest foreign investors.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
FEB. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — ArcelorMittal, the Luxembourg-based steel manufacturer, said it had temporarily cut salaries for workers at its plant in Temirtau near Karaganda, central Kazakhstan, by 25. ArcelorMittal has struggled to make the plant profitable over the last few years. It has cut its workforce at the plant to 17,000 from over 20,000.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
FEB. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhmys, one of the biggest employers in Kazakhstan, said it was stopping work on a handful of side projects and making 2,000 people redundant. Kazakhmys’ main product is copper although it employs thousands more people in support businesses such as coal mining. The news piles more pressure on Kazakhstan’s economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
NOV. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An oil rig partially collapsed in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, killing at least one worker. This was the second fatal accident on Azerbaijan’s off-shore energy sector in less than a month, throwing up general safety concerns.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
JUNE 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Workers at an oil services company that supplies equipment to the Kashagan oil project in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea have gone on strike, media reported.
Since a strike by oil workers in west Kazakhstan ended in 2011 in clashes with police and 15 people being killed, the authorities have been ultra-sensitive to industrial action, so news that workers have walked out of Tuplar Energy Serves Company (TESCO) complaining of late salary payments will frustrate them.
TESCO have responded that their main client, the Australian company WorleyParsons hasn’t paid their invoices on time. WorleyParsons hasn’t commented.
The importance of this latest strike action in west Kazakhstan is not who is ultimately responsibly, no doubt lawyers will thrash this out, but the impact on the local community. If people aren’t working and aren’t being paid that means less cash in the local economy, increasing frustration and resentment of the increasingly rich political elite.
One disgruntled worker told the lada.kz news website: “I came here to work and establish a family, now I can’t find another job, the company hasn’t paid me for six months and the banks are pressuring me about my mortgage.”
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
MAY 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Temirtau steel plant in central Kazakhstan, owned by Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, said that it would make 1,000 workers redundant in order to cut costs.
Outside the energy sector, the Temirtau steel plant is one of Kazakhstan’s biggest industrial operations.
It’s been trying to navigate through a difficult period, though. The combination of sanctions on Iran, previously the factory’s biggest client, and the general global economic weakness combined to knock profits and it has steadily laid off workers over the past couple of years.
At the end of last year, reports surfaced that it would look to cut around 2,500 people from its workforce of about 14,500. This now appears to have been watered down.
There hasn’t been an official statement from the company but state-backed TV channel Astana quoted Dmitry Pavlov, head of human resources at the plant, saying that the work force would be cut by only 1,000 people.
Temirtau is a classic Soviet style monogorod. The plant is the heart and soul of the city and, although the job losses appear to be limited, they will still have a large trickle-down impact.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MARCH 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Acting as a peacemaker, the Aktobe regional government in north-west Kazakhstan stepped in to mediate in a labour dispute at an oil field operated by China’s state-run energy company CNPC.
The move highlights what appears to be Kazakhstan’s preferred policy when strikes are threatened — to appease labour unions rather than antagonise.
Kazakhstan is desperate to avoid a repeat of an oil workers’ strike in the western oil town of Zhanaozen in 2011 which ended in violence that killed at least 15 people.
Kazakh workers at CNPC AktobeMunaiGas say that they are treated unfairly, paid less and live in worse conditions compared to their Chinese counterparts.
This is a not a new complaint and, although China is a key energy client, Kazakhstan has pushed to improve worker conditions at Chinese companies. And this was no exception.
“The Commission recommended that managers improve the system of remuneration and create conditions for the production in accordance with labour laws,” the Aktobe government said in a statement.
Importantly sources in Aktobe said the threatened strike now appears to be on hold.
CNPC AktobeMunaiGas is one of Kazakhstan biggest oil producers, producing around 6m tonnes each year.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
DEC. 30 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — ArcelorMittal will cut hundreds of jobs at its steel plant in Temirtau, central Kazakhstan as it attempts to stem loses from declining global demand.
A Conway Bulletin correspondent in Almaty said the local trade union had estimated that 2,500 jobs would be lost, roughly 17% of the workforce. Although the numbers were not confirmed by ArcelorMittal, the management did agree that jobs would be cut.
Temirtau is a classic monogorod, the Russian term given to cities that survive on one industry, and the job losses will deal a heavy blow economically and psychologically.
The Termirtau steel plant is one of the biggest non-energy projects in the country and also where Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev worked before moving into politics.
In a statement on the company’s website, Vijay Mahadevan, CEO of ArcelorMittal Temirtau, said orders for the company’s products had fallen by 12.5% in the last two years triggering the cuts.
General global demand for steel products remains weak and one of the factory’s key clients, Iran, has been suffering from heavy sanctions that have undermined its economy further.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
SEPT. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A steel plant owned by ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, in Kazakhstan has introduced a shorter working week because of a drop in demand for its products, local media quoted Reuters as reporting. ArcelorMittal’s plant at Temirtau, near Karaganda, has seen demand drop because of Western sanctions against Iran, a major client.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)