Workers at ArcelorMittal’s Kazakhstan unit hold meeting to demand 30 per cent salary increase

ALMATY, Kazakhstan – Workers at a Kazakhstan plant owned by Luxembourg-based steel giant ArcelorMittal have held a demonstration to demand higher salaries.

The company said that Saturday’s rally in the industrial town of Temirtau was legal and that an official from ArcelorMittal’s personnel department met with workers to discuss their grievances.

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Any signs of industrial dispute have been greeted with intense caution in Kazakhstan since a long-running sit-in demonstration over salaries in a western oil town culminated in December in deadly riots.

Trade unions are seeking a 30 per cent wage rise, but ArcelorMittal’s management says that is unfeasible and that it has to take reduced industrial output into account when considering pay increases.

Local news portal eKaraganda.kz said around 3,000 workers took part in the Temirtau demonstration.