Azernews.Az

BAKU – 10 deaths occurred in Azerbaijan’s oil sector in 2010 due to life-threatening conditions at work, a local rights group estimates.

The Oil Workers Rights Protection Organization said eight of those people were employees of the state oil company SOCAR, and one each from Salyan Oil and Azfen-Tekfen companies.

The group said in a report released Friday that a number of violations of labor law occurred last year. As a result, thousands of people working for SOCAR lost their jobs. Over 22,500 workers were dismissed and up to 13,600 people were hired by the company.

The rights group believes that firing so many people and then hiring about half of them amounts to a violation of law.

The report also said 70 oilworkers filed lawsuits against their employers in 2010 with the rights group’s assistance. 37 pleas were reviewed by courts, including 25 that were subsequently upheld, while the other suits were rejected.

Jahangir Aliyev, who heads the Oil and Gas Industry Workers Trade Union’s committee, argued that the report was controversial. He said that an increase in SOCAR’s staff by around 13,000 people could not be considered hiring new employees, as the jobs were generated due to the state-run chemicals producer Azerkimya and gas supplier Azerigas’ being transferred to SOCAR.

"The total number of the oil company’s employees is currently around 85,000, but up to 6,000 of them are workers of Azerkimya and up to 12,000 work for Azerigas. Therefore, it would be absolutely wrong to say that so many workers were hired."

Aliyev said the people who lost their jobs were mostly those who retired. "There are fields [of the oil sector] in which up to 15,000 people of quite an old age used to work. They were replaced by younger personnel."