N. Aceh council to study EMOI?s labor contracts

North Aceh regency council (DPRD) will in March study labor contracts of workers at oil and gas producer ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia (EMOI) in order to help resolve labor dispute at the company, local daily Serambi Indonesia reported Tuesday.

DPRD wanted to make sure that the labor contracts followed manpower ministerial regulations, the paper quoting as saying Hary Azhar Nur, chairman of DPRD commission in charge of social welfare. For this, the council had formed a data collecting team.

Hary said Monday that EMOI must make it clear which manpower regulations it had adopted to outline labor contracts for its workers in North Aceh where it has gas operations. He said EMOI?s workers preferred manpower ministerial regulations issued in 1995, Kepmennaker No. 05/1995, and not Kepmennaker No. 27/2000 and Kepmennaker No. 150/2000.

?Workers said that Kepmennaker No. 05/1995 specially deals with workers in the oil and gas sector, and that Kepmennaker No. 27/2000 treats them as contract workers,? Hary said.

Last Thursday, council commission members met with EMOI?s manager Alex Dodds and other company executives to discuss the labor issue. Officials of the country?s upstream oil and gas authority, BPMIGAS, also attended the meeting. (*)