T

he management of copper and gold mining company PT Freeport Indonesia and their workers are set to go back to negotiations under government mediation to end the prolonged industrial strike which has paralyzed the company’s mining operation.

The director general of industrial relations and social security affairs at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, Myra Maria Hanartani, said she and her team who departed for Timika on Sunday, would lead the negotiations after the two sides agreed to return to the negotiation table on Monday.

She said her main mission was to facilitate the tripartite negotiations with the management and workers and warned them of the loss of millions of working hours which has affected both the management and workers.

“We will continue facilitating bipartite negotiations and concentrate on discussing industrial disputes in the company. With almost two months of strikes, the company’s production has dropped slightly while workers have lost millions of working hours. The negotiations will be the last chance for both sides to seek win-win solutions so that the company can resume operations,” she told The Jakarta Post.

Myra said her team would coordinate with the mediation team from the Mimika regency administration to deploy a cultural approach and provide an effective strategy to encourage both sides to resolve their dispute peacefully.

“The government will focus on bipartite negotiations, instead of bringing their disputes to court, because in this case, the cultural approach is assessed to be more effective since this labor dispute has been politically driven and made complicated by the involvement of Papuan exiles and international labor unions,” she said.

Myra said she was optimistic that the strike would end immediately since the management had offered a 35 percent wage hike while the KSPSI unit had lowered their demand of a wage hike to US$4 per hour from the previous $6.7 per hour.

“If the company convincingly agrees to a wage hike of $5 per hour and registers it with the state-owned insurance company PT Jamsostek, the workers are expected to end their strike and go back to work,” she said.

The management previously offered only a 22 percent wage hike while workers demanded $6.7 per hour. The management has set a minimum wage of Rp 3,316,000 ($375.3) per month but in reality, lowest-level workers have been paid around Rp 8,000,000 in gross monthly wages, including meal money and annual bonuses.

More than 4,000 workers employed under the outsourcing system, went on strike on Sept. 15, 2011 after the management turned down their demand for a wage hike to $6.7 per hour. With the contract system, the workers are employed for two years which can then be extended for another year without social security programs and annual bonuses.