Wives of Adaro?s workers to stage protest rally Saturday

The wives of about 200 workers of PT Parma Persada Nusantara, a contractor of coal mining company PT Adaro Indonesia which operates in East Kalimantan, had planned to stage rallies at the company on Saturday or Monday in protest of its recent move of suspending the workers.

They complained that the suspension of their husbands would cause a drastic drop in their income, local paper Balikpapan Post reported on Saturday.

The 200 workers were among the 3,000 employees of Pama Persada Nusantara who had been on strike since late last week after the chief of the labor unit in the company was attacked by a group of unidentified men, an action suspected to have been done on the company?s order.

The attack took place after AM Janatha, the company?s labor unit chief, met with Pama Persada?s executives and discussed the possibility of increasing the working shifts from two to three shifts.

Meanwhile, the company?s legal officer Fitra Hadisurya, expressed his worries on Friday that the planned demonstration of the workers? wives could seriously affect Pama Persada. He pointed to the similar actions taken by the wives of PT Vico?s workers and students, also in East Kalimantan, which had nearly caused that company collapse. (*)