"US may block Indonesia nickel on forced labor issues" 10 September 2024

The US Department of Labor has put Indonesian nickel on a list of products made using forced labor...The report [2024 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor], which has no immediate legal or regulatory ramifications, cites press coverage and various reports by NGOs on working conditions in the nickel smelters concentrated on the islands of Sulawesi and Maluku in eastern Indonesia.

Owned and operated in partnership by Chinese and Indonesian firms, workers from both countries crew the industrial parks where they allegedly face arbitrary deduction of wages, violence, forced overtime and constant surveillance. Chinese workers also face the confiscation of passports and restrictions on their movements.

In Morowali, an area of central Sulawesi that has emerged as a hub for the industry, workers who spoke to Asia Times repeated similar allegations while also highlighting unsafe working conditions...Locals or workers who protest about the environmental impact or working conditions claim to have faced investigation and harassment by authorities...

Indonesia’s industry now finds itself caught in the crosshairs of both ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) concerns and geopolitical tensions...

So far, the industry has been built as a Chinese-Indonesian partnership...Alongside Chinese battery and EV producers like CATL, Wuling and BYD, South Korea’s LG and Hyundai have also started production in Indonesia...Projects mooted or rumored by Western refiners like Tesla, Volkswagen and BASF have either failed to manifest or fallen apart...

The latest US Department of Labor report will add to those complications...Influential US senators have also raised concerns about Chinese influence in Indonesia’s supply chain. Allegations of forced labor by a federal agency will only be more grist to the mill...