ASTANA – KazMunayGas (KMG), Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas company, and BerAli Mangistau Company, an oil industry services provider, agreed to create a special working commission to address the demands of the latter company’s recently dismissed employees, who arrived in Astana from Zhanaozen this week, reported the company’s press service on April 12.
Photo credit: KazMunayGas.
The commission includes 10 representatives from among the former employees of BerAli Mangistau Company, who will remain in the Kazakh capital to continue negotiations, while the rest returned home.
On April 11, KMG Chief of Staff Yerkhan Umarov met with the former staff of BerAli Mangistau Company, which earlier lost a tender for oilfield services for Ozenmunaygas, a KMG subsidiary.
In this regard, the company’s former workers were offered employment in other companies, including at Kezbi and Ai-Bis, the companies that won the tender, as well as retention of an average salary of 700,000 tenge ($1,550), a social package and working conditions. The offer was rejected by the oil workers, who demanded employment at Ozenmunaygas.
According to KMG representatives, demands of oil workers to be employed at Ozenmunaygas are not legal, as they bypass existing legal procedures and are contrary to the rules for hiring for a job in this organization, which provides work for the unemployed in Zhanaozen on a first-come, first-served basis.
These rules were adopted at the request of the town residents to ensure a fair distribution of jobs.
The negotiations were attended by KMG specialists and the management of BerAli Mangistau Company and Ai-Bis.
