Tuesday morning about 350 workers of South Pars gas field phases 17 and 18 in the southern city of Assalouyeh, in protest to lack of payment of their salaries since July 2014, walked off their job and staged a sit-in.
One of the protesting workers said: “These workers work 23 days per month and have 7 days of leave and the employer must give them 2.5 days of vacation per month but so far they have not been given any vacation.”
None of the workers has a work contract and despite the stay-in strike, no one has addressed their complaints.
The Phase workers say that since their complaints have not been addressed, they find the only option as walking off their job.
South Pars is part of a wider gas field that is shared with Qatar. The larger field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran’s territorial waters (South Pars) in the Persian Gulf.
The South Pars gas field, divided into 28 phases with offshore platforms, is located in the Persian Gulf on the common border between Iran and Qatar. The field is estimated to hold 14 trillion cubic meters of gas as well as 18 billion barrels of condensates.
It has been announced that all phases of the development of South Pars gas field will be accomplished by the end of his tenure in 2017.