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Jakarta Post

Freeport, workers continue talks amid chaos

Copper and gold miner PT Freeport Indonesia continued negotiations with striking workers in Papua on Monday

Irawaty Wardany (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Tue, October 25, 2011 Published on Oct. 25, 2011 Published on 2011-10-25T05:00:00+07:00

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Freeport, workers continue talks amid chaos

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opper and gold miner PT Freeport Indonesia continued negotiations with striking workers in Papua on Monday.

“If [Monday’s] negotiations are unable to reach an agreement, the process will continue on Tuesday,” Mimika Manpower Agency chief Dionisius Mameyao said on Monday as quoted by kompas.com.

Dionisius said government representatives would mediate the negotiations on Wednesday if Tuesday’s sessions failed to produce an agreement.

The negotiations have come under the spotlight after around 1,000 workers launched a strike on Sept. 15, blockading roads and, according to Freeport, allegedly intimidating other workers and sabotaging an ore concentrate pipeline. The pipeline has since been repaired.

During negotiations on Friday, the Freeport branch of the All-Indonesian Workers Labor Union Confederation (SPSI) demanded that the company increase its minimum wage paid to non-staff workers to US$7.50 per hour and to $33 per hour for third-level staff, rehire workers laid off during the strike and pay workers back wages for the strike.

The strike that started in September was the second at Freeport’s Grasberg mine this year. Workers walked off the job for eight days in July to protest low wages and the dismissal of union leaders.

Meanwhile, Freeport demanded that strikers open the blocked access road and allow workers who wanted to cross picket lines to work. The company also agreed to increase wages by up to 25 percent over two years.

Violence has flared around the mine several times in the last week. One contract worker and two non-employees were shot by unknown gunmen early on Friday.

Five Freeport workers were previously killed — two by police trying to control a crowd and three by unknown gunmen.

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