Nearly 2,000 workers at the Burgylai oil wells at Zhanaozen, Kazakhstan, are on strike demanding the nationalisation of their plant and that the government take emergency measures to stabilise the economic situation, stop mass sackings and guarantee the payment of wage arrears.
Unable to get the agreement to start negotiations on these questions, 14 members of an independent workers’ trade union at the plant launched an indefinite hunger strike.
The authorities are trying to isolate the strikers and maintain an information blockade. The trade union leaders are being pressured by the local government administration and the ‘special police’ to end the strike and to prevent it spreading.
However, workers in another ten oil fields carried out a one hour solidarity strike on the 26 March in support of the Burgylai workers and sent delegations to meet with them.
