Aussie firms speed up Indonesian staff promotion
Aussie firms speed up Indonesian staff promotion
JAKARTA (JP): Some Australian mining companies are speeding up
the promotion of Indonesian staff to replace Australian
executives in anticipation of worsening anti-Australian
sentiments in the future, a mining analyst said.
Paul Louis Courtier, executive director of the Indonesian
Mining Association (IMA), said that with the promotion of
Indonesian staff to top positions the companies expected their
operations to remain unaffected, despite the possible evacuation
of Australian staff in the future.
Coutrier said all the mining companies had in fact established
programs to promote local workers in order to cut remuneration
costs as well to develop local human resources. But they were
initially doing it gradually to give foreign workers enough time
to transfer their skills to local workers.
But the deterioration in relations between Indonesia and
Australia over the East Timor issue over the past month had
pushed the companies to accelerate their promotion programs,
Coutrier said.
"We all hope that the relations between Indonesia and
Australia will soon improve.
"Anyway, the current strains in the relation between both
countries are a blessing in disguise for some Indonesians as it
gives them a chance to take over jobs left by Australians,"
Coutrier told The Jakarta Post.
Coutrier refused to name the mining companies now accelerating
their promotion programs.
But the country's largest coal mining company PT Kaltim Prima
Coal (KPC) in Sangatta, East Kalimantan, earlier confirmed that
it was thinking of cutting the number of its Australian workers
and giving Indonesian staff greater responsibilities, in
anticipation of possible anti-Australia unrest in the future.
KPC general manager Bambang Susanto said the company would not
extend contracts with Australian workers who were assigned
unessential jobs as part of the new employment policy.
"The expatriate staff reduction will also enable the company
to cut costs," he said.
KPC is equally owned by Anglo Australian mining firm Rio Tinto
and British company British Petroleum.
Most of the executives of Australian mining firms evacuated of
East Kalimantan last month amid rising anti-Australia sentiments
in the province.
Australian mining companies operating in the province include
KPC, gold mining company PT Kelian Equatorial Mining (KEM) --
which is also a Rio Tinto subsidiary -- in Kelian district, Kutai
regency and PT Arutmin Indonesia, a subsidiary of BHP Pty Ltd.
Students and youth organizations rocked the towns of Samarinda
and Balikpapan last month with a series of rowdy anti-Australian
demonstrations in protest against the burning of the Indonesian
flag in Australia and the alleged mistreatment of Indonesian
students in the country.
In one protest, the students "kidnapped" two Australian
executives of Arutmin and forced them to hold a press conference
to apologize to the Indonesian people for the burning of the
flag.
Most of Australians fled the province on a charter flight the
following day. (jsk)