The management had recently discovered that a pipeline channeling copper and gold concentrates to the company`s port had been cut at several places. Consequently, the company could not continue production.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - PT Freeport Indonesia has temporarily stopped production of gold and copper due to rising tension between its management and workers, a company executive said.

"We will stop production at both open field and underground mining stations starting today," Vice President of PT Freeport Indonesia Nurhadi Sabirin said here on Monday.

He said the management had recently discovered that a pipeline channeling copper and gold concentrates to the company`s port had been cut at several places. Consequently, he said, the company could not continue production.

He said production would be resumed after the situation had been normalized.

Earlier. PT Freeport spokesman Ramdani Sirait had said production activity was interrupted because demonstrating workers had blocked roads between the company`s mining area and port. After production activity had been stopped, the company would only do maintenance jobs.

Ramdani said the company would report the current situation to Coordinating Minister of Political, Legal and Security Affairs Djoko Suyanto and Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Darwin Saleh.

The labor dispute at Freeport began with differences between workers and the management over the inclusion of a higher pay system in a new collective labor agreement (PKB). The difference of views emerged during negotiations to draw up a new PKB for the 2011 - 2013 period.

The negotiations on the new PKB lasted for 30 days from July 20 to August 19, 2011, which were later extended by seven days until August 26, 2011.

But because the workers union and the management failed to reach an agreement, the government fielded a tripartite plus team composed of representatives of the ministries of law, manpower, energy and mineral resources and police) businessmen (national executives of Apindo) and workers to have direct dialogs with the workers` representatives.

Manpower Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said he was sending a special team to Timikia, Papua, to make persuasive approaches and help defuse tensions between the PT Freeport management and its employee.

"We will continue to provide assistance to overcome the problem at Freeport in manpower terms by involving negotiators between the workers union and the company`s management. We hope that this industrial relations dispute will soon be settled, and not claim more victims," the minister said.

The minister said the government had tried to mediate between the workers union and the management in negotiations on the workers` demands with regard to their collective labor agreement (PKB).(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2011