Germany: Esso protest in solidarity with striking Kazakh oil workers

Bring the campaign to trade unions and the Left!

Members of SAV (CWI Germany) organized a protest at an Esso petrol service station in Berlin, to gain support for striking oil workers from KazMunaiGas in Kazakhstan.

Facing brutal oppression from the Kazakh regime, including the killing of a trade-unionist at his workplace, international solidarity is urgently needed for striking oil workers. They are striking for better payment and better working conditions.

The Exxon Mobil Corporation (‘Esso’), in collaboration with the dictatorial Nazarbayev regime in Kazakhstan, the state gas and oil company, KazMunaiGas, and its daughter companies, benefits from the Kazakh oil workers’ appalling working conditions and low pay.

We held our public solidarity protest on 1 September and we demanded the immediate release from prison of the oil union’s lawyer, Natalia Sokolova, and trade union activist, Akhzanat Aminov. We also highlighted international solidarity for the workers and their families.

We handed out leaflets to people passing by and to workers at the Esso garage. People expressed their support for the Kazakh oil workers. SAV comrades in Germany are also campaigning for support for the oil workers in trade unions and in DIE LINKE (Left Party), passing resolutions in solidarity and collecting money for the striking worker’s families. At a membership meeting of DIE LINKE in Aachen it was agreed to send a solidarity message to the strikers and financial donations were made.

In addition, SAV members in Hamburg ran a stall at a street festival and collected money for the strikers’ families.

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