KZBlog

Just discovered this draft post on my site. Interesting in light of recent events that they felt appealing to the President would help.

Although it hasn’t made much news inside Kazakhstan, for several months yet again oil workers have been striking in Western Kazakhstan. Now they have come to Astana to ask the President to step in and resolve the problem.

Before commentators start saying that that appeal didn’t do any good, I have heard from various people variously related to the oil companies that the oil workers have had quite a few of their demands met including wages of 300,000 tenge a month (around $2000). As @joshuafoust argues, their high wages may be one reason they aren’t garnering huge amounts of sympathy inside Kazakhstan. The oil company managers aren’t quite sure what else they can do, as no matter what they give them they want more.