Human Rights Defender on Violation of Bahar Energy Ltd. Workers’ Rights

Baku / 01.07.20 / Turan: The rights of workers are violated in the operating company Bahar Energy Ltd., the head of the Oilmen’s Rights Protection Committee, Mirvari Gahramanli, told Turan.

She noted that, as directed by the company’s President John Harkins, the Acting President Dale McFadden, in violation of the labor legislation of Azerbaijan, threatens workers with dismissal and forces them to conclude new labor contracts with a 20% understatement. This applies to employees with low salaries, and not to those who have high salaries (4,000 - 40,000 manat).

Moreover, the company’s management has not paid salaries for two months in violation of the law.

Gahramanli recalled that President Ilham Aliyev strongly recommended that workers not be dismissed during the pandemic.

“However, employers do not reduce staff, but prematurely terminate contracts and force them to write letters of resignation of their own free will. In this case, people who are unemployed cannot get unemployment insurance,” Gahramanli said.

Our attempts to get comments at Bahar Energy Ltd. failed. An answering machine responded to phone calls at the company and did not ultimately connect us to anyone.

Bahar Energy Ltd. operates in the Bahar and Gum-deniz fields as a subsidiary of Greenfields Petroleum, which owns an 80% stake in these fields. The remaining 20% ​​belong to SOCAR.

Total production from the fields is 4,400 barrels / day. The residual field reserves are estimated to exceed 150 million barrels. –06D--