The Indonesian subsidiary of US mining giant McMoRan said yesterday it had resumed operations after a two-week suspension caused by fighting among workers.
Work was halted last month after employees complained that a deal struck in December last year — which ended a three-month strike over wages and conditions — was not being implemented properly by management, with some strikers not being paid.
The company closed the mine, saying some workers who participated in the strike had “engaged in acts of violence and intimidation against non--striking workers and supervisory personnel.”
Photo: AFP
Three workers were arrested by police over the violence.
However, yesterday Freeport Indonesia spokesman Ramdani Sirait said: “The workers’ union and the company management agreed last week to mobilize all workers to return to work today.”
hope
“Hopefully everything will go back to normal again,” he added.
Freeport did not give details on what led to the latest agreement, but workers’ union spokesman Virgo Solossa said: “Freeport has promised to give salary to those who had not received their pay.”
However, Solossa defended the workers, saying: “Those who did not receive their salary were upset and took it out on their colleagues who received their pay.”
“We also want the three workers to be released as I am afraid that if they are prosecuted, it could lead to another protest,” he said.
negotiated return
The workers agreed to return to the mine in mid-December after negotiating a 37 percent increase in their wages, which started at US$1.50 an hour for union members and better conditions for contractors.
The company slashed production by 50 percent when 8,000 of Freeport’s 23,000 workers went on strike last year.
The strike at the mine triggered a spate of violence, with at least eight people killed in ambush attacks and clashes with police in the already troubled province.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS