Despite deal, Freeport workers continue to strike

Deal or no deal, strike continues to hit the massive Freeport mine in Papua.

An agreement was signed in Jakarta on December 12, under which workers will get a 37% wage increase, housing allowance, better shift and work location incentives, education assistance, and a retirement savings plan. The company will also pay the salaries of the workers while they were out on a strike.

The deal was expected to end the strike which has disrupted production at the mine since mid-September. However, even after the deal, workers have not returned to work and continue to strike.

?The workers are still striking at Checkpoint 1 even though an agreement letter [to end the strike] was signed on December 12,? said Brig. Gen. Paulus Waterpauw, the deputy chief of the Papua Police, as reported by the Jakarta Globe Friday.

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

Waterpauw said that aspects of the strike had been disruptive and had violated the law. ?What they have been doing can be categorized as criminal.? 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.

The Grasberg mine, controlled by US energy giant Freeport-McMoRan, holds the world?s largest gold and second-largest copper reserves. (*)