Turkmen workers in rare revolt
By Institute for War and Peace Reporting
In a rare outbreak of social unrest, Turkmen workers employed on a high-profile
pipeline staged a strike and subsequently clashed with Chinese fellow-workers.
Nearly 200 workers were arrested, but they have subsequently been released,
apparently at the insistence of Chinese energy company officials involved in
laying the pipeline, which will link Turkmen gas reserves with China. The
US$7.3 billion Central Asia-China gas pipeline project began in 2007 and will
take natural gas from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and on to
China. Gas is scheduled to begin flowing by the end of this year and will be at
full capacity in 2011, RFE/RL reported.
The trouble began on September 12, when construction workers
in eastern Turkmenistan went on strike to demand better pay and conditions. The
protests spilled over into a brawl between Turkmen and Chinese workers, leaving
15 of the latter injured, according to RFE/RL.
Staff complained that Chinese managers on the joint project were making them
work 10 hours a day instead of the eight stipulated by local laws, specifically
the Labor Code, which came into effect on July 1.
The Turkmen were also unhappy that they get paid much less than their Chinese
counterparts.
"We get far less for the same work," said an excavator driver. "The Chinese get
US$800 a month, whereas we Turkmen get just over $200."
Strikers said they were acting out of desperation since the Turkmen authorities
had done nothing to protect them.
The Turkmen constitution contains guarantees of labor rights, and bans
discrimination among workforces and the extension of working hours without
remuneration.
"The law doesn't work in this country, and the people under arrest are unable
to assert their rights in disputes either with the Turkmen authorities or with
foreign employers," said an activist in the Lebap region of eastern
Turkmenistan.
As a result, he said, people have no confidence in their leaders on employment
matters. "The construction workers opted for radical measures," he said.
Annadurdy Khajiev, a Turkmen economist based in Bulgaria, said the detained
workers were reportedly released after the Chinese company intervened on their
behalf.
"Why doesn't the Turkmen government protect its own citizens from labor
violations?" he asked.
Other commentators note that this was not the first protest staged by Turkmen
employees of foreign companies.
In July 2008, 600 oil workers at a drilling operation run by Italy's ENI in the
western town of Nebitdag went on strike to demand a pay rise because a change
in the exchange rate had effectively cut their wages. Although employment
contracts require foreign firms to pay local staff in Turkmen manats, many
actually pay in US dollars.
In November 2007, workers building an iron and steel works near the capital
Ashgabat began industrial action to press their employer, Turkish company
Sehil, to pay back wages.
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