Student group criticizes East Kalimantan administration for providing "salary" to KPC protesting employees
Wednesday, September 6 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
The East Kalimantan FAMK student grouping strongly criticized the recent decision of the local administration to provide "salary" to some 260 protesting employees of the giant coal-mining firm PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC).
The local Kaltim Post quoted FAMK coordinator M. Fitiransyah as saying that it was a "bad" policy which could inspire other labor groupings to hold a protest and demand a similar facility.
Hundreds of KPC employees grouped in the SBSI labor union had held strike for months demanding among other things an increase in salary. But the protesters also took control of crucial production facility during their strike, causing the company to be unable to run production and prompting it to announce a force majeure status.
The negotiation process to end the labor strike had been difficult because both KPC and the protesting employees insisted on their demands. KPC want the protesting employees who continued to hold a strike from August 2-17 (the two sides had initially reached agreement to end the strike at the end of July) to be given a disciplinary warning with a consequence of receiving only 50 percent of the salary.
But the protesting employees demanded the company to withdraw the disciplinary warning and demand a full salary.
The East Kalimantan administration then stepped in to provide the remaining half of the salary, the Kaltim Post reported.
The paper also said that KPC agreed to provide free-interest Rp 1 million loan to each employee.
Meanwhile, East Kalimantan administration spokesman NB Naryanto defended the government policy.
Naryanto said that the payment to the KPC employees only totaled Rp 18 million. "This is small compared to the amount to be received by the government if KPC continues its operation."
He added that to be frank, the Rp 18 million funds actually also came from KPC coffers. "It's a face saving measure," he said.
Separately, KPC external relations manager Bambang Susanto said that the company has resumed its normal operation and since August 24 it had withdrawn the force majeure status.
Bambang also confirmed that both KPC and the protesting employees had reached final agreement. (*)