Striking PT Freeport workers trickle back to work

Entering the third day of a major strike by employees of copper mining company PT Freeport Indonesia on Saturday, at least 489 workers were back on the job at the mine in Tembagapura.

“There has been a push among some of the workers to start working again, and as many as 489 have gone back to work,” PT Freeport Indonesia president Armando Mahler told reporters in Jayapura on Saturday after meeting with Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Darwin Zahedy Saleh.

Mahler said the company would not pay the salaries of workers who had been on strike since Sept. 15.

“We all know that the strike has been conducted since midnight, Sept. 15, local time. The management has decided not to pay their salaries during their strike. No work, no pay,” Mahler said.

Mahler added that the company had paid the salaries of workers who went on strike in July because it was part of the workers’ union’s demands for returning to work.

“That [payment] was out of our generosity. In this second strike, we have strongly committed to not paying the salaries of those on strike,” he said.

He called on workers to resume work because they themselves would bear the brunt of the strike, adding that every worker on strike lost at least Rp 577,000 per day (US$65.75).

The strike was launched following a deadlock in negotiations between the workers and company management, although it remains unclear what the negotiations were about.

Mahler said that, in the joint work agreement negotiations, PT Freeport had offered a 22 percent wage rise in two stages — 11 percent in the first year and 11 percent the next year.

According to media reports, he said, up to 7,000 workers went on strike, but it was hard to gauge how many were hard-set on the strike and how many were persuaded or coerced.

“There were workers who were forced to leave the mining site by others visiting from room to room [in the dormitory]. Because they were frightened, they gave up and went down, but upon arrival, they ran out of money, had no dormitory and did not understand where to eat and so, under their own will, many decided to go back to work,” he said.

Mahler said that the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry in Jakarta would mediate with the workers to settle the dispute.

“The first mediation session was held on Sept. 11, 2011, in Jakarta, but the workers’ union representative failed to come. The second mediation session will be on Monday,” he said, adding that if the union representative failed to appear again, a third summons would be sent. If they insist on ignoring the summons, the dispute will go to the industrial relations court.

As of Sunday evening, union representatives could not be reached for comment.