TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan said that PT Freeport Indonesia should treat its employees as important assets. He has advised the company not to lay them off.
“A good company treat its employees as important assets. Layoffs would not be its first decision, it would be the last one instead,” he said before the members of parliaments in Jakarta on Monday, February 20, 2017.
Freeport plans to lay off its employees in the near future, citing deadlock in copper concentrate export permit negotiation.
Freeport is barred from exporting copper concentrate before switching its Contract of Work (CoW) to a special mining permit (IUPK). Freeport-McMoRan Inc. President and CEO Richard C. Adkerson said that the company has cut its production due to the export ban. As a consequence, some employees are deemed surplus to requirements.
He did not specify the number of employees to be laid off. Adkerson, however, has confirmed that both local and foreign workers will be subject to it.
Jonan said that had he been a leader of Freeport, he would have taken different measures to address the production problem.
Gus Irawan Pasaribu, a member of the House’s Commission VII, says that Freeport has not shown a willingness to negotiate in good faith despite the fact that the government has granted an export permit which would help resolve production cuts issue.
