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9 August, 2010
A strike last week at Indonesia’s second largest copper and gold mining operations ended on Friday, 6 August, after some 1,500 miners of the PT NNT labour union, affiliated to the Chemical, Energy, Mine Workers’ Union of the Indonesia Workers’ Union, agreed to await an overtime pay judgment from a provincial government. The strike started on 1 August and completely shut US-based Newmont Mining Corp.’s rich Batu Hijau mines and operations on Sumbawa Island.
The dispute started some three weeks after the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry of West Nusa Tenggara Province issued an order that management was in arrears on Rp 126 billion (US$13.8 million) in overtime wages to some 1,919 workers dating back to 2008.
Newmont’s Indonesian subsidiary, PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara, refused to comply with the order and in late July talks with the union, said it would challenge the order. The company was claiming that since the work agreement does not expire until the end of 2010, it was under no obligation to comply with the order.
The union and management continued talks throughout the four-and-a-half day strike last week, with the two sides agreeing late on 5 August to get a legal interpretation of the order. Workers were back to work on Friday afternoon, 6 August. Some 7,000 total employees are employed at Batu Hijau.
Newmont is managing partner and a 31.5% owner of the Batu Hijau mines and processing operations. Gold production in the first half of 2010 has increased by 87% over the same half-year period in 2009, while copper production is up 43% in the same period. Batu Hijau is expected to produce 227,000 tonnes of copper concentrate in 2010, while gold production is expected to reach 525,000 ounces.