Govt Says Striking Freeport Workers Demanding Too Much

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry says Freeport Indonesia’s union workers should be more reasonable in their demand for a raise.

Deputy Minister Widjajono Partowidagdo said on Friday that the ministry would try to help the workers negotiate a raise, but he asked them to consider coming down from their current demand of a tripling in salary.

“They should not compare their salaries with those of workers in other countries,” he said. “They should compare them with other mining companies in Indonesia.”

Tensions at Freeport-McMoran’s Grasberg gold and copper mining site in Papua have risen since October, and ten deaths were reported near the mine last month.

Freeport Indonesia’s 8,000 union workers this week are heading into the third month of their strike, and they have said the walkout might be extended to Dec.15.

The workers have demanded a raise from around Rp 6 million a month to somewhere in the range of Rp 18 million to Rp 22.5 million ($2,000 to $2,500).

Freeport workers now make about the same as miners at Newmont Nusa Tenggara, the local unit of Newmont Mining, another US mining giant.

Subiyanto, secretary general of the Chemical, Energy and Mining Labor Union (SKEP), said Freeport workers deserved a big raise because Freeport Indonesia was the largest revenue contributor to Freeport-McMoran.

“Compared to the Freeport mine in Chile, our brothers in Papua are severely underpaid,” he said.

Subiyanto said the strike was one of the biggest labor actions in the country of the past decade and that the Freeport workers had managed to keep the strike going mostly through their own efforts.

“Freeport workers being able to strike for more than two months shows how determined they are and how badly they have been treated,” he said. “I heard they have Rp 1.5 billion in emergency funds.”

Subiyanto added that labor unions had been disappointed by the response of the government, which has tended to support the company.