Thiess wants exclusion of ex-workers from meeting with E. Kalimantan legislative council

Australian mining contractor Thiess Contractors Indonesia (TCI) said on Tuesday its executives were willing to meet with East Kalimantan provincial legislative council (DPRD) members and explain to them its dispute with ex-workers only if the council makes sure that other parties will not attend the meeting.

TCI?s human resources manager Peter Roche told Petromindo.Com that they had in fact offered to meet with council members on several occasions, and had made clear their stance.

In the past, Roche said, TCI leaders had met with former employees of the company and members of their representative bodies namely labor union SBSI and mass organization Komando Bela Mega. In the meeting, however, they threatened and intimidated TCI?s participants, Roche argued.

On Monday, DPRD members threatened to sue TCI in court because it had refused to take part in a meeting with council members scheduled for the same day. Another reason for the legal action against TCI was that, through its letter to DPRD, TCI leaders not only refused to attend the meeting but also used ?arrogant? words against DPRD, council vice chairman Khairul Fuad was quoted as saying.

Roche said however: ?The allegations that Thiess is arrogant is without basis and is strongly refuted by Thiess.?

TCI, which works for coal miner Kideco Jaya Agung, last year fired 171 workers after they refused to return to work at its mining project in East Kalimantan. They went on strike to press the company management to give them extra pay for doing 12 hours of work per day. The workers said the company management had refused to fulfill their demand.

The workers recently reported their case to DPRD and asked it to press TCI for paying their salaries, arguing that their layoff had been illegal.

Roche said the minister of manpower?s annulment of the decision of the East Kalimantan office of labor dispute (P4P), which allowed TCI to fire the 171 workers, had been overturned by state administrative courts.

?The decision of these three tribunals vindicates the fact that Thiess have acted in accordance with the law throughout this whole process,? Roche said. (leo)