It has now been four months since workers at Freeport-McMoRan's Grasberg mine in Papua decided to strike, demanding higher pay. Despite the company's efforts to forge an agreement, the workers' union plans to extend the strike for another month, to Jan. 15.

This is both highly irresponsible and extremely selfish. Not only will the ongoing strike hurt Indonesia's image as an investment destination, it directly hurts the workers as they have not been paid for the past three months. We wonder if union leaders are able to guarantee the workers that their families will be looked after if the mine is forced to shut down permanently due to the ongoing strike.

The damage the strike is doing to the local economy is also immeasurable. As the workers are not being paid as long as they remain on strike, they are unable to buy goods from local stores, which in turn are facing severe losses. Multiply these losses across the region and you have the basis of a crisis that will have far-reaching ramifications.

Juli Parorrongan, the spokesman for the union representing Freeport workers, has said that the workers "want to encourage further discussion aimed at settling the problem as soon as possible." Why then is he extending the strike for another month?

The union had originally demanded a 20-fold pay rise to $30 an hour from the current $1.50 to $3 an hour. Not only is this demand ludicrous, it smacks of greed. No company in the world, no matter how profitable, would be able to afford such a drastic increase in the salary of its workers.

While we fully endorse a fair and equitable wage for all workers, the fact is that Grasberg's 8,000 workers are already the best-paid in the country. A truck driver with a number of years of experience at Freeport last year earned Rp 16 million ($1,775) a month, higher than what many white-collar workers take home in Jakarta and other major cities.

Furthermore, it is not appropriate to compare pay scales in Indonesia with other countries, given different conditions and standards of living. Under the current wage demands of the union, a truck worker would take home Rp 73 million a month! The country cannot be held hostage by a union that is neither responsible nor rational.