KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait – Kuwait’s acting oil minister has urged striking union workers to get back to their jobs, promising the government will not reduce their “core benefits.”
The statement by Anas al-Saleh, who’s also finance minister, was carried on the official Kuwait News Agency Monday.
Thousands of workers in six oil and petrochemical companies went on strike Sunday to protest proposed government cutbacks.
Kuwait Petroleum Corp., which is the parent company of the Kuwait Oil Co. and other related firms, says it has implemented an emergency plan to cope with the strike, but official statements suggest that oil production was more than halved on Sunday.
Spokesperson for the Kuwait Oil Company Workers’ Union, Adel al-Fadhel, told the Associated Press that the strike will continue into Tuesday since no written guarantees have been delivered to the union.