Proposed Global Picketline
On 31 May 2017 AAWL proposed launching a Mining Industry Global Picketline with the objective of achieving the reinstatement of the sacked Freeport-McMoran workers, and the recognition of the demands of the Indigenous people affected by the Freeport mine
The current dispute started in May at the giant Grasberg copper and gold mine in West Papua, owned by Freeport McMoran, and has continued to escalate with more than 3,000 workers now having been sacked.
This dispute is also having repercussions for workers at a copper smelting plant in East Java, where the company has used the Grasberg strike as an excuse to dismiss hundreds of workers.
Workers at other Freeport McMoran mines, and in other mining communities around the world, can support the workers at Grasberg with industrial action and solidarity. This can become powerful action to help workers win this dispute.