Employees of Chinese road construction firm in South Sudan go on strike

Employees of Chinese road construction firm in South Sudan go on strike
BBC Monitoring Service – United Kingdom
Published: Aug 14, 2007

Text of report by Sudanese newspaper Alwan on 14 August

Starting from today, more than 600 workers of the Chinese company for roads and bridges, “LPEB” [acronym in English as published], will stage an open strike to protest against low salaries and the oppression and marginalization of Sudanese workers.

A number of workers who preferred to remain anonymous in Hijlij [one of the biggest oilfields in South Sudan] told Alwan yesterday the strike was necessitated by many grievances against the workers, ranging from low salaries, marginalization of Sudanese workers and the discrimination between the Sudanese and Chinese workers, an issue which had led more than 600 Sudanese engineers, technicians and drivers to begin an open strike until the problems were handled.

The workers, who rejected the solutions presented to them by the company management, threatened to resort to other measures which could complicate the issue.

The speakers said a large number of the workforce had been working for two months without a renewal of their contracts, something which indicated the company could be intending to replace them with Chinese workers.

It is worth mentioning the Chinese company for roads and bridges is considered the biggest company working in the Hijlij area and has many branches.

Source: Alwan, Khartoum, in Arabic 14 Aug 07