Indonesian Freeport Workers Block Mine

TIMIKA, KOMPAS.com - More than 1,000 workers on strike at a giant Indonesian mine owned by U.S. company Freeport McMoRan (FCX) blocked the only road to the facility Wednesday, days after a deadly clash with police.

It wasn't immediately clear what impact the blockade was having on production at the Grasberg complex, one of the world's biggest gold and copper mines.

Police shot and killed one protester and wounded at least six others in Timika, in eastern Indonesia's Papua province, Monday in a standoff with workers demanding higher wages.

Herman Sirakoy, a Freeport worker at the blockade said: “We demand the company, police and the local government take responsibility for the shootings, and that Freeport stop operations completely as they have been instructed to do.“

A company representative was trying to negotiate with the workers, who had felled trees to block the route, he said. “We will not unblock the road until Freeport stops operations,“ Sirakoy added.

A Freeport spokesman didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Police say violence broke out Monday when workers began pelting stones at officers, seven of whom were hospitalized.

Workers set fire to a car and three trucks belonging to Freeport during the clash. The provincial legislative council released a letter of instruction last Thursday stating that if Freeport and the workers did not agree on new wages “in the shortest time possible“, Freeport must suspend operations.

More than 8,000 mostly indigenous Melanesian workers are demanding the minimum wage at the mine go up more than eightfold, from $1.50 an hour to $12.50 an hour, and the maximum be raised almost ninefold, from $3.50 to $32.

The strike entered its second month last week. The trouble at Grasberg, coupled with a spate of strikes at Freeport's South American mines, had raised concerns of a global copper shortage but some analysts say any impact could be limited by falling demand for the metal.

Union representatives say that Freeport's Papuan workers receive the lowest wages of any Freeport mining facility in the world.