Bloomberg reported that workers at Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc’s Grasberg mine in Indonesia threatened to return to strike as tensions grow following the dismissal of 3 union members this month.

Mr Juli Parorrongan union spokesman said that “There’s discrimination against workers who participated in last year’s strike that is creating a lot of problems and the sacking of three of our members is making it worse. We are in talks with the management. Hopefully we’ll reach an agreement within two weeks otherwise I can’t rule out another strike.”

Freeport halted production at Grasberg, which has the world’s largest recoverable copper reserves, for more than two weeks in February and March after violence flared following 3 month strike last year over pay that hurt global supply and boosted copper prices. Disruptions at Grasberg cut Q1 output by 80 million pounds and 125,000 ounces of gold.

Mr Ramdani Sirait a Jakarta based spokesman for Freeport said that management isn’t aware of any strike plan this month while acknowledging tensions between employees who took part in the strike and those who didn’t. The dialog between the two parties is taking place to try and solve the problem.”

Mr Sirait said that the company set up a crisis management unit to deal with the labor dispute. Whether shipments from Grasberg have returned to normal after production resumed in March.

Source - Bloomberg.net

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