He said not only Freeport workers but also local community members especially the six tribes living in the Timika region had experienced injustices and not enjoyed any welfare.
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Jakarta
(ANTARA News) - A non-governmental organization (NGO) here has urged the
government to conduct an audit on PT Freeport Indonesia`s finances in
connection with the company`s failure to care for the welfare of its employees
and local community members.
"I
recommend an immediate audit of PT Freeport Indonesia by a presidential team or
a team from the House of Representatives (DPR) as this problem is very serious
in view of the number of employees that reaches 22,000 excluding their family
members that reach tens of thousands. My proposal is to set up a special
committee to ensure the serious handling of the problem," the coordinator
of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), Hariz
Azhar, said here on Monday.
He said not
only Freeport workers but also local community members especially the six
tribes living in the Timika region had experienced injustices and not enjoyed
any welfare.
Therefore,
he said an "extraordinary" team needed to be set up to evaluate and
find out why PT Freeport Indonesia had failed to improve its workers welfare
and to meet its social corporate responsibility obligations.
He said the
team was also expected to be able to determine why security authorities had
failed to unveil the many shooting incidents that had happened in the region
and caused insecurity among the local people as well as Freeport workers.
The team
should also be able to ascertain whether Freeport had paid been paying its
taxes properly considering that convicted tax man Gayus Tambunan had mentioned
the company`s name in his case.
"That
must be uncovered and the investigation must be continued," he said.
The
Freeport case has happened many times raising a question if the government
really wants to settle it, he said.
"Seeing
the sheer number of its workers and their family members this is a national
problem, a patriotism problem. So if the government wants to prove its
nationalism, support the workers," he said.
He said if
it is PT Freeport that the government supports it will be the government that
is anti-nationalist," he said.
Kontras
along with TLBHI and the Cooperation Forum of Papua Non-Governmental
Organizations had earlier condemned PT Freeport for having used the police as a
shield against its own workers.
It also
criticized the company for refusing to sign a new collective labor agreement
with the workers and also ridiculed the police for giving an ultimatum to the
workers to stop their strike.
He said the
strike was called because the workers wished to improve their welfare by
changing provisions in the collective labor agreement including raising their
wages, YLBHI deputy chairman Alvon Kurnia Palma said.
Based on
Law Number 21 of 2000 labor unions have the right to conclude collective labor
agreements with employers and Article 27 states labor unions are obliged to
protect and defend their members from human rights violations and fight in
their interest and the welfare of their members and families.
Alvon said
the profits made by the company had been very huge while only a small part of
it had been given to the workers. In view of that it was logical that the
workers had asked for a raise.
The Mimika
police chief, Deny Edward Siregar, had ordered the Freeport workers to stop
their strike at Check Point I at Mile 28, Mile 27 and Gorong-gorong in Timika
and open access so far blocked by the workers.
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