During a working visit to the West Kazakhstan region, Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan Satybaldy Dauletalin met with Davide Mazzuccelli, Director of Human Resources and Service Support of the Karachaganak Petroleum Operating B.V. Consortium. The Chairman of the FTURK held a labor consultation with representatives of the company’s management and trade union leaders on the implementation of the Corporate Social Agreement signed in February 2020.
The Corporate Social Agreement is the basic document for the development of social partnership between the largest company with foreign participation – the Karachaganak Petroleum Operating B.V. Consortium (KPO) and the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
“Corporate social responsibility of business is a global trend today. It is enshrined in the UN Global Compact. We consider corporate social responsibility to be another tool for protecting the labor rights of employees. I would like to note the special importance of the agreement for the development of social and labor relations in our country and emphasize that we will always support the efforts of business in implementing the principles of corporate social responsibility. This agreement is the basis of cooperation in the social and labor sphere, in the development of a collective agreement in the company “Karachaganak Petroleum Operating B.V.”, – said Satybaldy Dauletalin.
In turn, Davide Mazzuccelli, Director of Human Resources and Service Support at KPO, informed about the basic norms of the collective agreement signed between the company’s management and trade unions.
“It defines the indexation of wages, the payment of sick leave in an increased amount, the provision of material assistance to large families, the payment of sanatorium treatment. According to the results of the current year, the increase in wages of employees will be 21 percent,” Davide Mazzuccelli said.
The number of employees in the KPO company is 4,076 people, of which the share of Kazakhstani employees is 95% (3,878 people). The company has three trade unions at once, two of which are member organizations of the FTURK. The total number of members is 1840 people.
As the trade union leaders of the company noted, the social partners worked together to develop a collective agreement, focusing on the development of social guarantees. For example, according to the current collective agreement: annual assistance in the amount of 200,000 tenge has been established for families of employees raising children with disabilities, for the company’s employees themselves with disabilities – a new payment to employees in the amount of 30,000 tenge monthly; the amount of child birth allowance for company employees has been increased from 250,000 tenge to 400,000 tenge. Also, the amount of an interest–free advance has been increased 2.5 times for KPO employees – up to 5 million tenge, since the beginning of the year several hundred employees of the company have already used this collective agreement norm.
Satybaldy Dauletalin thanked the social partners of KPO for the social orientation of the current collective agreement and recalled that when signing a collective agreement, companies with foreign participation are obliged to comply with the labor legislation of Kazakhstan, and expressed hope that the management of KPO will continue to comply with legislative norms, and each subsequent collective agreement will systematically improve the social well-being of the Consortium’s employees.
As for the action “labor consultations” initiated by the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan, its main goal is an open dialogue between social partners. These are bilateral joint consultations, a kind of bilateral channels of information exchange. On the one hand, the employer transmits data to trade unions concerning production management issues, on the other – receives information from trade unions related to working conditions. The system of joint consultations contributes to the prevention of labor conflicts and the reduction of social tension in labor collectives.
The labor consultation between the heads of FTURK and KPO was held for the first time since the signing of the Corporate Social Agreement.
Today, within the framework of the consultation, the parties confirmed their intention to strengthen cooperation in the field of observance and protection of social and labor rights of employees, creation of decent working conditions, ensuring labor protection, health and environmental safety of employees.
By the way, the Corporate Social Agreement signed between KPO and FTURK is unique in the history of independent Kazakhstan today.
Media Center of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan