TIRANA, Jan. 18 – Unhappy with unemployment benefits that the Albanian government has told them to apply for, some 1,200 oil workers who have remained jobless since last December have resumed protests, demanding the oil refiners’ reactivation and their unpaid salaries.
In a protest staged in the city of Fier, southwestern Albania, this week, oil workers rejected the 11,000 lek (€81) unemployment assistance they can benefit for up to 12 months depending on their seniority, saying the government has to find an immediate solution to the resumption of work or bring the company back under state control.
Work at the Fier and Ballsh refineries was suspended last December after only 14 months of operation by an offshore company owned by an Albanian businessman following problems with the payment of staff and getting crude oil from the country’s largest oil producer.
The suspension of work at Albania’s largest oil refiner has been a routine process in the past decade following the 2008 failed privatization of ARMO, a company where the Albanian government still a minority 15 stake and whose two refineries have been taken over by an Albanian-owned commercial bank following a loan default by the company that privatized it.
In late December 2017, hundreds of oil workers marched for about 140 km from the Ballsh oil refiner to Tirana and were able to get their unpaid November wages only after several days of protests and meetings with the economy and energy ministers.
Workers say they now want back the payment of other accumulated unpaid salaries and their social security and health contributions and the immediate resumption of work as their sole employment opportunity, especially in the poor Mallakastra municipality of some 27,000 residents where the local Ballsh refiner is the top employer and every time work is suspended there, poverty deepens.
The Union of oil Workers warned they would escalate their protests and even set up tents in front of the Prime Minister’s office in Tirana if negotiations over resumption of work and their unpaid wages fail.
“That is a repeated case and the solution has not been permanent. The government lacks the will to solve the issue,” said Iljaz Kamberi, the head of the Oil Workers Trade Union.
Speaking at a press conference, Kamberi said the refiner is in a good technical condition and it’s only the locally produced crude oil that is lacking and the government could also take over unless no investor is found.
Earlier this week, Finance Minister Arben Ahmetaj offered oil workers assistance to apply for unemployment benefits, a statement which oil workers described as unacceptable.
Under Albania’s social assistance system, workers who are made redundant can get from 3 to 12 months of unemployment benefits of up to 11,000 lek (€81) a month depending on their work experience from 1 to 10 years.
“The government is committed to support every serious investor that comes with a serious project to do business in the Ballsh and Fier refineries,” Ahmetaj said this week.
A newly established offshore at the British Virgin Islands and also registered as a joint stock company with Albania’s National Business Center, IRTC accumulated about €50 million in debts to the tax administration during its 14-month operation, a national TV reported.
In case another company takes over, it would have to sign a lease contract with the Albanian-owned bank that owns the refineries and the now Chinese-run Bankers Petroleum, operating the Patos-Marinza, one of Europe’s largest onshore heavy oilfields, to get crude oil supplies.
