Algeria: Oil workers strike reaches tenth day

Tuesday marked the tenth day of the strike of the Entreprise des Grands Travaux Pétroliers’s workers in Hassi Messaoud (south of Algiers).

• Some of the four thousand workers told Echorouk on the phone they are insist on getting their right in raising south bonus by 80 percent.
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• They also want to earn a complete salary during the bi-monthly vacation like the workers of Algeria’s energy group Sonatrach.
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• Secretary General of the enterprise’s union Eid Belferkous said the workers’ claim is legitimate. “There is no difference between them and Sonatrach’s workers as they share the same working conditions in the south.”
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• He added that he accepted a 40 percent pay raise followed by a similar raise starting from January 2012. Yet, the workers refuse to drop the annual vacation and replacing it by another working form.
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• A source says all the workers of the Entreprise des Grands Travaux in the country claim the same rights. Their number is estimated at 9,300.