Thread regarding Chevron Corp. layoffs

This is painful to read
Chevron Toxic culture have spilled all over Kazakhstan from ruthless and useless HR to poor management to bias to social ixrrresponablity to the usual corruption
Now even Fatalities
What will Chevron do to tue families of tue 2 people that Chevron ki---d in the last month Hydrotest Fiasco

Are the workers being laid off contractors or TCO employees?

All the comments calling expats corrupt when talking about KZ is ironic to say the least. Paying national workforce competitively, but comparatively to national wages is standard and just common sense. If Kazakhs at TCO were paid the same as expats they would be in the top 1% of earners in their country (not including their “elected” officials). That would be stupid. Also TCO provides total remuneration that includes childcare expenses and housing loans among other above standard benefits. Benefits generally not provided in most expat home countries. But go on…

I agree - Russian wages are quite high.

Whilst there are some career expats, typically an expat will return to their home country payroll after a couple of years. If there isn’t expected to be the need for the increased Kazakh resources in Kazakhstan then it makes no sense for the company to retain them and put them on expat assignments.

When the concession ends and (if) KMG takes over TCO, nationalisation % goes from 95% to 100%… do you think KMG will increase KZ salaries to match Expats?

I heard the Turks were mad because they earned less than the Kazacks. Hope they don’t tear up the canteen again.

Post from TheLayoff.com

It sounds like maybe the Russians should be invited back in. I'm sure they would treat everyone better and there would be less income disparity. Grow up.

Shop the tax dodgers to Kazakistan and put them to work. Ki-l two birds with one stone.

@4qew, One could also argue that the US tax structure today which allows over half of the households to pay no federal income taxes, yet receive more benefits and sponge off of he rest of the workers who pay all of it is "disgusting, exploitative and from the dark ages or modern age slavery."

I guess if a Kazak company was operating in the US you would ask them to lower all the US payroll staff to Kazak pay levels. Makes sense. Fair.

I see both sides of the coin. Chevron would not invest there is they do not get a good deal

But they also should not use this investment to exploit the local workforce that way or to hire the privileged connected friends and this is a known fact in Kazakhstan.

Chevron should consuder Equal pay for the same job. The last comment about take it or leaving is disgusting, exploitative and from the dark ages or modern age slavery.

Social sustainability is more important for any corporation than short term gains. Given their record profit, Equal pay is the least than can do.

I met many Kazakhs who are unhalpy about their pay and I have not met a single Kazakh who is happy about the unqual pay. I work there as controls engineer and after 40 years of operating the field, they have enough local expertise except for some disciplines.

I would support my Kazakh colleauges to get paid the same without the location allowance which is rightly due to us as expqts but the current pay differntial is shameful and unjust.

If you don’t like the pay, find another employer. Plenty of Kazakys happy to work hard without complaining..

egardless of the commercial agreement of who benefit from the Oil. Chevron has this agreement long time ago under Nazerbayev dictatorship. They never had a deal that benefits the locals so they get the pennies for the hard work and the top guys get millions in contracts.
Chevron is very unethical and untrustworthy in Kazakhstan. The locals get paid very unfairly low wages doing the same job as expats who are neither more competent nor work harder.

Explain to me how an HR person is considered to be an expert that needs to be relocated to Kazakhstan rather than working remotely and makes 20 times the local HR who know the local rules and norms.

I can understand why you may need to pay top dollars for specialty expats like Automation engineers for example. But in Kazakhstan, they bring all friends from Camp service staff to HR to administers and even document controllers and pay them astronomical wages compared to the locals.

Equal pay is the minimum for people doing the same job.

Locals pay should be based off the local cost of living and comparable pay for a similar position and education level within that country, period.

If you pick up your family and move around the world then you’re entitled to same benefits as every other expat if you’re a Chevron employee. Now granted in many cases you’ll still be paid your salary and pay taxes in accordance with your home country.

I’ve heard complaints from expats in certain locations wanting their salaries dollarized, but how is this fair? I’d love to be paid two or three times as much in the US to offset my cost of living and inflation, but that’s not how it works. The Venezuelans might be an exception, where salaries were dollarized, but their economic situation presents an extreme case. My 2 cents.

Norway would love it if more companies "took their oil". They do everything they can to encourage this. They want it taken out of the ground because, although they have their own companies, they know that maximizing participants and activities, they get the biggest benefit for their economy, even if dry holes are drilled. If discoveries are made, the country gets fabulous royalties on production. At the other end of the spectrum are latin countries (Venezuela, Mexico) who think national oil companies are the way to go and no outsiders "stealing" their oil. These countries have the least safe, dirties, least efficient and least productive oil businesses. You choose.

The comment about Norway

Try to go to Normay .. take their oil. Bring your friends as expats and Pay them 10 times the Norwegians who are doing the same job, make record profit of their cheap oil and call this a fair deal and socially responsible

Chevron is still deeply involved in the dark ages of employment practices and exploitation of people and resources. All the hype about diversity is to hide the ugly truth. It is putting a lipstick on a pig

I guess Chevron should find the country with the highest wages in the world (Norway? Switzerland?), then pay all of our employees according to that wage scale, regardless of where they actually live. That would be fair. Nobody could complain that someone from another country was paid more.

I would love to see one of fhe women at Chevron Women Network champion the cause of Equal Pay in Kazakhstan ... :)

Sorry guys, I wws just day dreaming .. lol ... that can only champion the causes that benefit them. Rotten culture to the bones

A PGPA crafted response two comments below have 2 misleading statements

He or she called the layoff are among the Subs. He forgot that these are the ones who build the project. The actual workers who did the work but did not drink the co-----l’s. Now given the record profit, that came mainly from Kazakhstan, where is their bonuses and share of the wealth. They did the work and now being thrown away while Chevron is paying its expats astronomical bonuses for doing pretty much nothing more than the locals.

The other misleading is Chevron is one of the shareholder. Chevron is the operator and the majority shareholder that reaps the majority of the profit.

Stop the greed and give back to the locals. Equal pay is the minimum you should offer given how much profit you gained for years.

The last comment is stating that this is the Norm in Kazakhstan.

Well yhe norm in Oil and Gas across the globe is for women to get paid less than men and now we are changing this.

Why can not you have Equal pay in Kazakhstan. Why are you hiding behknd local politics?

Women complain rightfully about getting paid 15% for the same job and in Kazakhstan you pay the locals one tenth of what an expat is getting paid for the same job. This is 2022 and the old norms have to change. The Kazakhstani citizens complained about this unequal mistreatment in many shape and forms including riots and even civil unrest. So they are not accepting this mistreatment.

Why would you send HR expats that can do their job remotely and pay them 20 times the locals salary. What do they bring more to the table rather than being connected inside the compnay to get these lucrative jobs.

Equal pay shkuld nog be based on Passport Color in 2022. It is not the norm anymore so stop hiding behind this.

The layoffs are primarily at the subs supporting the project. A project which is coming to an end. This is how it works in every part of the world, not just Kazakhstan.

As for equal pay, when a company works in a country they pay locals at the local rate on par with local companies with similar roles (NCOC, KMG), whether they are in Kazakhstan or Angola or Canada. Again, nothing new and makes condominiums sense both from a business standpoint and local economy standpoint.

TCO is something like 90% nationalized now, and the LT is probably half Kazakh. So don’t put all your blame on Chevron - TCO is a Kazakhstan company both legally and in how it’s being run. Chevron is just the majority shareholder.

I am American and I agree with the last comment

RM and the Women Network only focus on what benefits them which speaks volumes of how rotten is the culture inside the company

Something that I can not understand is people are fighting for equal pay for women and equal rights in the US and they act deaf when people ask for Equal pay between the expats and the Nationals in Kazakhstan.

If 2 people are doing the same job, why Chevron pays its expat employees 10 times the Nationals for exacrly the same job

A national project engineer will make 20 to 30 K$ dollar per year while the expat who is doing the same job gets paid 200 to 500K for the same job.

Kazakhstan is not Cheap and prces are very high.

Equal pay should not only be gender based but also it should not be different based on the color of the passport.

Now all American Equality, Freedom and Democracy propaganda machines will be silent and deaf. They will speak again when it comes to Gender unequality

People who are claiming that the project is ending need to think if corporate responsibilities.

Why can not Chevron take Kazakh's abroad. Why they take Americans everywhere. The claim that it is an American compnay is weak as they make almost 1 million barrels per day of CHEAP oil that sells at Brent Price in Kazakhstan. One third of the whole compnay production come from there and yet they still treat the locals as inferior and the compnay is doing them a favor by exploiting them for one tenth the wage of expats that throw them away.

Agreed with the corruption comment. I will also include the ETC, CTC folks now, that got first dibs to go on this assignment. Just like our other MCPs, ETC and PRC are entitled to go and then the spoils go to other BUs. In reality, there are plenty of qualified folks but the corruption is there

Umm the project is over. It was an even bigger disaster than usual. Management was promoted. The rest of you are no longer needed. We have no other projects anywhere. Bye.

Any chance that folks involved are contractors who have worked throughout a project moving towards commissioning?