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Strike Goes on at Freeport Mine Despite Wage Deal
Jakarta Globe | December 23, 2011

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Workers at the Freeport mine in Papua have yet to return to work despite an announcement last week that an agreement had been reached to end a crippling three-month strike, the police said on Thursday.

“The workers are still striking at Checkpoint 1 even though an agreement letter [to end the strike] was signed on December  12,” Brig. Gen. Paulus Waterpauw, the deputy chief of the Papua Police, told state news agency Antara.

Waterpauw, who could not be immediately reached to independently verify the report, was quoted as saying that the company had failed to guarantee that thousands of workers laid off by Freeport subcontractors Kuala Pelabuhan Indonesia and Pangansari Utama would be rehired.

“That should have been included in the agreement signed in Jakarta and should have been outlined in a joint agreement letter to be signed by the government,” the officer told Antara.

The agreement was signed on Dec. 12 in Jakarta. It gave workers a 37 percent wage increase as well as a housing allowance, better shift and work location incentives, education assistance and a retirement savings plan.

Freeport also agreed to pay the salaries of the workers for the three months they were out on strike.

Meanwhile, the Papua Police said they planned to summon a number of strike organizers as part of ongoing criminal investigations into the labor action.

Board members of the All-Indonesian Workers Union (SPSI) have reportedly been banned from leaving Timika, the seat of the company’s headquarters, and dozens of members have been summoned for questioning.

Waterpauw was quoted by Antara as saying that aspects of the strike had been disruptive and had violated the law.

Board members are also the inciting force behind the workers’ refusal to return to work in spite of the agreement, he said.

“What they have been doing can be categorized as criminal,” the officer said.

He said that if the strikers at Checkpoint 1 refused to leave the area, the police would use force to disperse them.

Freeport Indonesia spokesman Ramdani Sirait had no comment on the matter.

Shortly after the agreement was announced, a spokesman for the workers union said the union was not satisfied with the deal. The spokesman said the salary increase was much lower than what the workers wanted.

Around 8,000 of 12,000 workers went on strike on Sept. 15, crippling production at the massive Grasberg mine, owned by US company Freeport-McMoRan. The mine holds the world’s largest gold and second-largest copper reserves.