This Friday I took a day off to recover from the flu.. Heh, if I only knew what I was going to miss! (it’s happened to me to be employed by the MCCI)…

r i g z o n e . c o m:

Workers at a facility in Azerbaijan owned by US oil services company McDermott went on strike Friday after managers removed posters commemorating the dead from a war with Armenia, officials and striking workers said.

The posters marked a national day of mourning for the war in the early 1990s.

“Workers have not resumed work, but the management … is investigating the situation to take the necessary measures,” company spokeswoman Gyulya Tagiyeva told AFP. “We regret that this misunderstanding has happened.”

The strike is the latest case of unrest at McDermott’s Azerbaijan operation after a strike last November by workers demanding better pay.

That strike was the first at a Western-owned facility in the ex-Soviet republic.

In the latest strike, employees are demanding the deportation of the Western managers responsible for removing the posters, a strike leader said.

“They ripped up the posters and threw them on the ground,” the employees’ leader told AFP, requesting anonymity.

It was unclear how many of the company’s 3,000 Azerbaijani staff were involved in the strike at the facility located some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the capital Baku.

McDermott’s Azerbaijan operation runs pipe-laying operations and builds oil rigs for BP of Britain, the top foreign investor in Azerbaijan’s oil industry.

Tensions remain high in Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh, an Armenian-controlled enclave that Azerbaijan and Armenia fought for between 1988 and 1994.

Hey! They haven’t mentioned the names! It’s not fair So, the Oscar goes to: Ed Stanky and Richard Davis! Congratulations on deportation!