Reply #33: Freeport strike mines a political jungle [View All]

[xchrom]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MK02Ae01.html

JAKARTA - He is a mechanic with a single name and a mysterious past, but the man called Sudiro is almost single-handedly leading the eight-week-long strike that has played havoc with the operations of the world's richest copper and gold mine in the central highlands of Papua, Indonesia.

When he was elected chairman of the Freeport Trade Union of Chemical, Energy and Mine Workers - a chapter of the nationwide All-Indonesia Workers Union (SPSI) - in October last year, Sudiro signaled from the beginning that things would be different for the mine's workers.

To the chagrin of Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of the Phoenix-based mining giant Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, he has


been true to his word. Suddenly, labor has became as much a part of the company's problems as perennial environmental and community issues and the renewal of its contract of work (COW) in 2021.

During previous union negotiations going back to 1977, everything had gone smoothly; for a lot of that time SPSI was the only union sanctioned by former president Suharto's New Order regime - and therefore was a docile one at that.