Local House to meet with KPC, protesting employees

The local East Kalimantan House of Representatives is scheduled to meet today (Wednesday) with the management of coal giant PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC) and its protesting employees to help settle the current dispute.

"We expect to be able to resolve the current problem quickly to avoid further losses," House deputy Kasyful Anwar As'ad told the local Kaltim Post daily.

He said that the Police would also attend the meeting.

A group of KPC employees had staged demonstration since June 14 to demand a higher salary. The protesters also controlled certain key facilities of the company causing it to be unable to produce coal. This may cause KPC to pay penalty because of a failure in delivering products to overseas buyer on time as stipulated in their contract.

There's no signs yet that the dispute would end soon.

Muchtar Pakpahan, the Chairman of the SBSI labor union, which is supporting the protesting employees, has accused the local police of taking sides in the dispute and has systematically tried to intervene in the labor affair.

He said that the police had violated the ILO convention.

But East Kalimantan Police spokesman Superintendent Faah Sumarno denied the allegation that the police was making intervention.

He said that the police was there merely to protect the asset of KPC not to intervene in the labor affairs.

Separately, head of the local KNPI youth organization Zainal Arifin said that welcome any move to fire the KPC protesting employees.

He said that there were around 175,000 unemployed youths in the province ready to replace the protesting employees.

Zainal lambaste the protesting employees demanding for higher salary because the KPC employees were much better in their welfare status than other workers in the province. (*)