House asks Tripatra to settle dispute

JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives urged on Tuesday construction company PT Tripatra, a subcontractor of American oil company PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia, and its employees to settle a six-week strike.

A member of House Commission V for industry and manpower, Anthonius Rahail, said the company and the workers needed to settle the dispute to avoid damaging Caltex's operation and the local community in Duri, Riau.

"The commission asked Tripatra, the workers and other concerned parties to set up a forum to discuss a way to end the dispute," Rahail, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), said after a hearing between the commission and representatives of the workers, a number of labor organizations and Tripatra.

Officials from PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia and state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina were also present at the meeting.

About 8,000 of Tripatra's 9,700 contract workers went on strike on June 21 at Caltex's facilities in Duri. The striking workers demanded higher severance pay.

Tripatra rejected the workers' demand, saying the amount of severance pay provided by the company was consistent with existing regulations.

Caltex spokesman Renville Almatsier said the number of striking workers had dwindled to 200.

The strike received international attention on Friday when about 150 American union activists protested at the Washington office of United States energy firm Texaco Inc. -- which owns Caltex in partnership with Chevron Corp. of the United States. The activists were protesting against alleged labor and human rights violations by Tripatra.

The activists claimed Tripatra harassed its striking workers and brought in security personnel to break up the strike.

In the talks with the House, a number of labor activists threatened to burn Caltex's facilities unless Tripatra was willing to meet workers' demand by Aug. 10.

Rahail said the commission asked the activists to refrain from such criminal actions.

Rahail noted that Tripatra was ready to reemploy workers once they ended their strike.

Tripatra has fired many of the striking workers according to the regulation which allows companies to dismiss employees who are absent from work for more than five days in a row.

Almatsier said the striking workers were involved in the construction of Caltex's oil production infrastructure, including buildings and tanks. He added that the strike had not slowed the company's total oil production of some 760,000 barrels a day.

"The strike so far hasn't hurt Caltex's production." (jsk)