US Demo Backs Indonesian Texaco/Chevron Strikers

American trade union activists demonstrated outside Texaco's Washington office on Friday in protest over ongoing labour and human rights violations at an Indonesian oil facility owned jointly by Texaco and Chevron. The demonstration was sponsored by the US labour confederation AFL-CIO and by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM).

At issue is a strike by 8,000 oil workers at an oil rig owned by Caltex Petroleum Corp, a joint venture between Texaco and Chevron, located in central Sumatra, Indonesia. The workers are employed by a Caltex subcontractor, PT Tripatra, which violated Indonesian labour law when it refused to make those of the workers with more than two years' seniority permanent employees and pay them the compensation due to them. The Indonesian workers are members of the Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI), headed by prominent labour leader Muchtar Pakpahan.

When the company refused to follow a May 1999 directive from the Indonesian Ministry of Manpower, the workers went on strike on June 21. PT Tripatra then fired the strikers on July 6 and has been using the Indonesian army and police to intimidate and harass the strikers. On July 23, these security forces fired rubber bullets at the strikers, shooting one man in the head. They also assaulted several other strikers.

"Disputes such as the one at the Caltex facility undermine the credibility of the Indonesian government in the eyes of the international community and must not go unresolved," said John J.Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO. "The Indonesian government has the responsibility to ensure that the workers’ rights are respected, and Chevron and Texaco have the obligation to ensure that subcontractors at their facilities abide by international labor standards."

"We call on Chevron and Texaco to use their considerable power and influence to insist that these workers are treated fairly and justly," insisted Robert Wages. He is Executive Vice President of the ICEM-affiliated Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers International Union (PACE), which represents workers employed at Chevron and Texaco facilities in the United States.

"The company must call off its security forces, pay the workers the compensation that is due to them and reach an amicable settlement with the oil workers’ union," he said. Wages is a Vice-President of both the AFL-CIO and the ICEM.

"We will not stand by and allow these workers’ rights to be trampled on," added Kenneth Zinn, ICEM North American Regional Coordinator. "It is appalling that, in the waning days of the 20th century, a worker anywhere in the world can be shot in the head for exercising his legitimate right to withhold his labour."