TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The head of the labor union of IMIP Hendri said that the compensation given to the victims of the smelter fire is not an adequate remedy for the situation.

"Don't let the compensation for the victims lead IMIP to neglect its main obligation to improve the occupational health and safety (OHS or locally K3) system to protect workers," Hendri said in a written statement received by Tempo on Wednesday, Dec. 27.

Workers' safety must be the number one priority, Hendri said. "A repeat of this tragedy must not occur just because of IMIP's desire for production," he added.

It was previously reported that the incident happened on Sunday of a smelter furnace owned by PT Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel (ITSS) in Morowali that killed 18 workers.

PT IMIP then delivered Rp600 million to compensate for the death of its workers, including school tuition for two of the worker's children. Meanwhile, the Media Relations Head of PT IMIP Dedy Kurniawan said non-fatality victims are to be given compensation in each case.

Hendri said that compensation was indeed one of the workers' demands. He also hopes that those injured in the incident will be guaranteed financial aid for treatment. "Additionally, workers must be compensated and their wages paid and they could resume working [at PT IMIP] post-recovery," he said.

However, workers also have several other demands, such as periodic revitalization, improvement of health facilities, provision of ambulances at IMIP, and quality OHS officers, as well as erasure of the ferroalloy department.

"We also demand the policy that allows inter-department lending of workers to be canceled and a commemoration of the incident every 24th of December," he concluded.

RIRI RAHAYU

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