Это архив материалов имеющих отношение к  классовой борьбе в Казахстане (только на англ.)
This is an archive of materials (in English) relevant to class struggle in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan: Labor Unrest Has Roots In Failed Privatization

By Merhat Sharipzhan

Prague, 12 March 1998 (RFE/RL) -- Evidence is mounting that Kazakhstan's flawed privatization program
between 1995 and 1997 is at the root of a series of major strikes that began last autumn and continue today.

Workers at Achisay Polymetal Factory in Kentau City in Shymkent Oblast, Sokolov -- Sarbay Iron Ore
Plant in Qostanay Region, Phosphorus Producing Plant in Janatas Town, Jambyl Oblast all have mounted
strikes, demonstrations or other labor actions.

A trial of three leaders of the Janatas strikers started this week. They face up to 10 years imprisonment on
charges of organizing an unsanctioned mass protest and blockading railway traffic in Taraz City on February
16.

A leader of the Workers' Movement in Almaty City, Madel Ismailov, is in cell no. 147 of Almaty Central Jail.
He is to be tried starting tomorrow after having participated in an assembly February 27 in Almaty of Kazakh
opposition movements and parties, at which creation of a new opposition alliance called People's Front was
announced. He is accused of publicly cursing Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev last November.

Some of the labor actions have won concessions. A strike of Achisay Polymetal Plant's workers in Shymkent
Oblast ended after the Kazakh government agreed to pay off the main part of the plant's wage arrears to the
workers. The Kazakh government also allocated some financial support for the phosphorus industry in
response to the Janatas strikers.

All of these strikes and protest actions have one factor in common: All the industrial facilities involved had
been sold or ceded in part to nominally foreign companies.

Last week one more such foreign company attracted the attention of Kazakh news organizations. The Global
Minerals Reserves Company convened a press conference in Almaty. Company representative Boris
Nozhkin issued a statement that a Kazakh government decision to annul Global Minerals' ownership of
Shubarkol coal mine in Qaraghandy Oblast, central Kazakhstan, was unfounded. Global Minerals acquired
the mine last year.

The agreement between the government and the company was that production was to be increased from the
Shubarkol mine, considered one of the most potentially productive mines of central Kazakhstan. In fact, the
mine produced 1.75 million tons of coal in 1995, 1.56 million tons in 1996 and 1.35 million tons last year.

In addition, Global Minerals agreed to invest the equivalent of $5 million in the facility each year. But last
year, it spent less than $1 million on the facility's infrastructure. The mine's technology remains remnants of the
old Soviet-era.

There had been objections three years ago when the decision was made to sell the mine to what was
declared to be a "foreign company," Global Minerals. But the deal went through, at least partly due to the
enthusiastic support of Piyotr Nefiyodov, then governor of Qaraghandy Oblast. Information has emerged
since that Nefiyodov's own son was a principal of Global Mineral Reserves and that the company itself,
though registered offshore, is led by former Soviet citizens.

About 13,000 miners in Qaraghandy Oblast have became unemployed as mines in the region have closed
and the region looms as likely to be the next embroiled in labor unrest.

12-03-98

(UNION OF COUNCILS PRISONERS COMMISSION )
ACTION ALERT: The Case of Leonid Solomin

Regime attacks workers, welcomes Big OilBy Bill Doares, in Workers World,
12 December, 1996