Chief economic minister asks Freeport to settle dispute

Hatta RajasaCoordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa has asked the management of PT Freeport Indonesia, the Indonesian unit of US mining giant Freeport-McMoran, to settle a dispute with its workers that led to a strike on Thursday, planned for a month.

“I will ask the managing director of Freeport to find a solution to this, to mediate [the dispute] between the labor union and the management,” Hatta said before a working meeting with lawmakers in Jakarta on Thursday.

“I hope they find a solution because such strikes upset everyone. The workers are upset because they can‘t work and Freeport can’t produce. And the state revenue will drop,” he added, as quoted by kompas.com.

Hatta also said he would communicate with the manpower and transmigration minister to ask him to mediate if Freeport could not settle the problem independently.

Thousands of Freeport Indonesia workers left Freeport mining site in Grasberg, Papua, on Thursday morning after they launched the strike, reportedly due to the management’s rejection of pay rise proposed by their labor union.