Around 2000 staff from Frabelle PNG Limited in Lae, Morobe Province, have gone on a stop work strike over unfair working conditions.
Staff went on strike as of 8am this morning and plan to extend to a week if responses to two petitions are not met by management.
Mathew Som, a spokesperson on behalf of staff, spoke to Loop PNG from Lae saying that strike is over pay rise increments and staff overworked without being compensated.
He said firstly, staff salary increments were made by a toea or two annually, which they say is not right since the Bank of PNG has ceased circulation of the one toea and two toea coins.
Staff want salary increments to be increased to around 50 toea or more.
Secondly, Som said the management of Frabelle recently approved the commencement of work on Sunday for the engineering staff of the company but this does not count as overtime but regular hours.
He said they believe that other sections will be instructed to follow suit, which they are against as this means they have to miss church as well as family time.
Currently staff have gathered outside the company, demanding a proper response.
Som said an initial reply from management this morning was undesirable and they will remain on strike until a favourable outcome is reached.
Attempts to get comments from Frabelle PNG Limited management at the time of publishing this story were unsuccessful.
Frabelle PNG Limited is a joint Taiwanese-Filipino partnership and one of the largest employers in Lae, processing around 200 metric tons of fish per day.