Newmont told to pay overtime wage

A special team of the Nusa Tenggara Barat provincial legislative council has decided that gold and copper mining company PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (NNT) should pay the overtime pay demanded by dozens of protesting workers.

The company must also drop its administrative sanction against the protesting employees, who had been on a strike to demand for higher overtime pay.

The protest occurred due to the different interpretation of the standard working hours that were implemented by the company. The workers insisted that the company had to pay four-hour overtime each day for the last two years while the company insisted that the overtime was only two hours a day.

The decision was made following a closed-door Friday meeting of the team with representatives of the employees, the company and the local office of the ministry of labor affairs. The latter will decide how much the company would have to pay.(*)