"Today, operational processes are running at about 50 percent of capacity with production of ore reaching 207,000 tons per day," Mineral and Energy Resources Minister Darwin Saleh Zahedi said here on Tuesday.
The minister expressed hope that PT Freeport`s management and workers would find a win-win solution to their problem.
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 30 days from July 20 to August 19, 2011 but 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. (*)
KR-IAZ/A051/HAJM/O001
Editor: Jafar M Sidik
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
