ArcelorMittal (MT)’s Kazakh unit gave a 10 percent pay gain to coal workers, including 7.4 percent to compensate for inflation, after rejecting higher demands.

The increase is effective from the start of 2012, and wage talks will resume in October, AO ArcelorMittal Temirtau said in an e-mailed statement today. Steel and coal unions have since November sought 30 percent higher wages, on top of an inflation adjustment, said Roman Ilto, a Temirtau-based spokesman for the company. It failed to agree to a pay deal with steel workers.

Unions representing ArcelorMittal Temirtau’s 35,300 staff declined an offer in February to adjust wages for inflation and discuss other increases after a sales target for rolled steel was reached, the unit of the world’s biggest steelmaker said on Feb. 28. Demands for salary increases by oil workers in western Kazakhstan triggered strikes and violence last year, leading to the death of 16 people after police used arms to suppress unrest in Zhanaozen during Independence Day celebrations on Dec. 16.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nariman Gizitdinov in Almaty at ngizitdinov@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net.