Tag Archives: labour rights

HRW criticises Kazakhstan over Union closure

JAN. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised the imminent closure of Kazakhstan’s independent workers’ union, the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Kazakhstan, as a violation of the right to freedom of association. A court in Shymkent, south Kazakhstan, had ordered the Union’s closure because it had violated union registration rules. The Kazakh authorities are suspicious of trade unions. They blame them for stirring up an oil workers strike in 2011 that turned into a riot.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Kazakhstan imposes restrictions on labour unions

NOV. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch accused Kazakhstan of deliberately creating mountains of red tape to thwart and frustrate labour unions. In a report entitled: “Kazakhstan: Workers’ Rights Violated, Restricted”, HRW said that the Kazakh elite grew nervous of labour unions after a strike in 2011 ended with police shooting dead several protesters. HRW said that the government had imposed a registration system on labour unions as a way of monitoring their activities.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

European Parliament set to approve Uzbek cotton deal

NOV. 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An influential European Parliament committee backed a textile trade deal with Uzbekistan that had been moth- balled in 2011 on concerns over the use of child labour.

The vote is a triumph for Uzbekistan and acting-president Shavkat Mirziyoyev as it bestows credibility on the Uzbek cotton sector after years of negative headlines and boycotts by international clothing companies.

The Committee on International Trade will now recommend at a full European Parliament vote in December that a trade deal is made with Uzbekistan.

Reuters quoted Maria Arena, one of the MPs on the committee, as saying that Uzbekistan had improved its labour rights over the past few years.

“The progress made by the Uzbek authorities allows us to move forward and include textiles in our partnership agreement. But we will remain extremely vigilant,” she was quoted as saying.

Last year the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) monitored the Uzbek cotton harvest. It said in a report that there had been major improvements in the way labour was organised and although it was still commonplace for government workers to leave their jobs to pick cotton during the harvest, the use of child labour was far reduced.

Human rights groups, though, were adamant that the European Parliament needed to set an example and avoid a deal with Uzbekistan. In an open letter to the committee sent three days before its meeting, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said that it was because of the European Parliament’s rejection of a trade deal in 2011 that Uzbekistan agreed to open up to UN monitors. It also said that the scenario in Uzbekistan wasn’t as positive as the committee made out.

“We were pleased to note that as a result of international pressure since 2013 children have not been forced to pick cotton on a nationwide scale, and child labour has effectively declined. Yet, local officials reportedly still resort to forced child labour out of a need to fulfil their quotas,” HRW said in its letter.

“Since 2014 we have received steady reports of extortion linked to the cotton harvest.”

Cotton is one of Uzbekistan’s most important commodities. For Mr Mirziyoyev, the timing of the recommendation is also important. He faces a presidential election next month.

He is certain to win this election and become the second post-Soviet president of Uzbekistan after Islam Karimov who died in September, but he still needs to win over popular support. Backing from the European Parliament that child labour is reducing in Uzbekistan and a trade deal can now be made will strengthen his position.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Uzbekistan ratifies ILO treaty on assembly

OCT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an apparent bid to improve its international business image, Uzbekistan ratified a UN convention that protects workers’ freedom of association and businesses’ rights to form lobby groups.

Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed into law Convention no. 87 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a UN agency, which had originally been drawn up in 1948.

It is the 154th country, and the last in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, to ratify the Convention. Notably, the US, China and India are among the countries which have not ratified the Convention.

And for Uzbekistan this is something of a landmark. It has been the focus of criticism from international human rights activists, who denounced repression of the opposition and the lack of independent platforms for alternative dialogues.

Many Western clothing companies boycott Uzbek cotton because of its links to forced labour.

Foreign companies have also complained about the difficulties of operating in Uzbekistan, considered one of the most repressive countries in the world, and the ratification of the ILO convention may improve their lobbying potential.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Turkmen cashpoints experience shortages

OCT. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen workers have been unable to access their salaries due to cash shortages at cashpoints across the Dashoguz province in northern Turkmenistan, the local service of RFE/RL reported. Teachers and other state workers who had not received salaries for months were notified that their back salaries had been paid into their bank accounts. Cash shortages, however, made funds inaccessible. News has been leaking out of Turkmenistan for months about cash shortages.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)f

Kazakh government defuses worker unrest

ALMATY, OCT. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Betraying its nervousness over labour disputes, the Kazakh government stepped in to end a strike by 2,000 workers at an oil company near Zhanaozen in the west of the country.

To end the strike, the government promised the company employing the workers a major contract boost which will allow it to increase salaries — meeting the strikers’ demands.

The strike over pay had been building, sporadically, for weeks but had only been supported by a few dozen people, some of them on hunger strikes. It was only on Sept. 30, when 2,000 strikers rallied for the first time demanding higher salaries from Burgylau, a local subcontractor for the state-owned Ozenmunaigas, that the government sent senior offi- cials to defuse what to them had become an intolerable scenario.

Zhanaozen, a scruffy town built in Soviet times to house labourers working on nearby oil fields, is seared into the Kazakh national conscience.

In 2011 clashes between protesters and police killed at least 15 people and plunged the government into perhaps its most serious post-Soviet crisis. Hundreds of riot police poured into the region and emergency powers were imposed. Eventually, the government was forced to guarantee jobs and wages in the region.

Importantly the clashes in Zhanaozen in 2011 have defined Kazakh labour disputes. Since then big business and the government have shown an unwillingness to face down worker demands.

And so it proved again. A Burgylau executive had told workers that the company was unable to pay workers any more because it wasn’t making a profit. This changed, though, after a visit from Alik Aidarbayev, governor of the western Mangistau region, who offered Burgylau another $18m worth of contracts in exchange for meeting the workers’ demands.

Burgylau is a subsidiary of KazPet- roDrilling.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Mosque staff in Kazakhstan file lawsuit

SEPT. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Staff at the Nur-Gasyr mosque in Aktobe, the largest in the city, filed a lawsuit against their employer to claim salaries which they say have not been paid. The mosque has not commented. The unpaid salaries is a reflection of the tight economic conditions in Kazakhstan and how problems are filtering through Kazakh society. The Nur-Gasyr mosque is one of 13 Islamic worship buildings in Aktobe. It was built in 2008 and cost $16.6m to build.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Oilmen strike in western Kazakhstan

JULY 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Around 700 oil workers staged a two-hour strike, protesting against alleged pay cuts and job losses at the Burgylau oil service company in Zhanaozen, western Kazakhstan, the US-funded RFE/RL reported. Burgylau is linked to businessman Yakov Tskhai, who owns a majority stake in its parent company KazPet- roDrilling. In 2011, around 15 people died in Zhanaozen during clashes between striking oilmen and police.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Turkmenistan fails to pay salaries

JUNE 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Employees of Turkmenistan’s state-owned oil and gas companies said they have not received salaries for months, the opposition Alternative News Turkmenistan website reported. Previous reports had said that state employees had not received salaries and had been forced to accept state bonds instead.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Oil workers strike in Kazakhstan

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – About 200 people working for the oil services company Techno Trading, which is a sub-contractor for Mangistaumunaigas went on strike. They complained that the company had not paid them their quarterly bonuses. Industrial action is a sensitive issue in western Kazakhstan where police and demonstrators clashed in 2011, killing at least 14 people. Inflation is rising and the value of the tenge has dropped in Kazakhstan, straining worker-employer relations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)