Seasonal workers still lack protection<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The lack of a clear-cut regulation on industrial
\nlabor relationships and poor control from the government have led
\nto the vast exploitation of workers, especially those hired on a
\nseasonal basis, according to legal expert Apong Herlina.<\/p>\n
Apong Herlina of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta)
\nsaid on Saturday that unlike permanent and temporary employees,
\nthe seasonal workers were not protected by any of the country's
\nexisting laws on industrial labor relationships.<\/p>\n
"Still, many people have no other choice but to sign a
\ncompletely unsecured, unfair contract because it is not easy to
\nfind a job these days," she told a discussion on legal protection
\nfor seasonal workers.<\/p>\n
According to the existing regulation, companies are only
\nallowed to hire employees on a temporary basis, up five years in
\nmaximum. After five years, such workers should be appointed
\npermanent workers if the companies still needed them.<\/p>\n
In reality, Apong said, many people had been hired as
\ntemporary or seasonal workers for over 20 years.<\/p>\n
"Worse still, they don't get the facilities or bonuses given
\nto their permanent working colleagues despite the fact that they
\nhave worked as hard and produced the same quality services as the
\npermanent workers do," she added.<\/p>\n
She said that under the existing laws, companies can only hire
\nnon-permanent workers to work in areas that are not the
\ncompanies' core activities, Apong said.<\/p>\n
Many big companies, however, had taken advantage of the
\ncountry's unsound legal system by hiring cheaper workers through
\nrecruitment agencies on a temporary or seasonal basis and placing
\nthem in areas that are "significant" to their core business, she
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Many banks, for example, hired temporary workers for their
\nmain businesses, such as customer services and credit card
\nproducts, she said, adding that some banks had even placed
\ntemporary staff in their relatively "sensitive" divisions, such
\nas the popular 24-hour telebanking customer services.<\/p>\n
"Banks which hired non-permanent workers in their telebanking
\ndivisions have clearly violated the regulation on banking secrecy
\nbecause they let non-employees have access to their customers'
\naccounts," she said.<\/p>\n
Director of the working prerequisites office at the Ministry
\nof Manpower I Wayan Nedeng, who also spoke at the seminar and
\nadmitted that the government had failed to solve the labor
\nproblems, said the most cases found by his office concerned
\ncompanies underpaying their non-permanent workers.<\/p>\n
"The law orders companies to pay non-permanent workers no less
\nthan what they pay the permanent ones. But, in practice many
\ncompanies underpay these non-permanent workers," he said.<\/p>\n
Several seminar participants, working as executives at human
\nresources offices at foreign banks that also hire seasonal
\nworkers through worker agencies, denied the allegation, saying
\nthat the banks had settled payments properly with the agencies.<\/p>\n
Separately, Ditta Amarhoseya, head of corporate affairs at
\nCitibank Indonesia, which recently faced protests from some of
\nits non-permanent employees hired through local labor agencies,
\nsaid workers who were hired through such agencies were not the
\nbank's responsibility.<\/p>\n
"They are employees of the agencies ... The contracts they
\nsigned are with the agencies, not us. Thus, their salaries and
\nother compensation are the responsibilities of the agencies," she
\nsaid in a company statement following the protest.<\/p>\n
Some 30 temporary workers at Citibank, some of whom have
\nworked there for over five years, recently demanded that the bank
\n-- which recently secured a labor agreement with the company's
\nlabor union -- hire them on a permanent basis.<\/p>\n
Ditta said it was common for big companies like Citibank to
\nhire workers from laborer agencies to be placed in some fields,
\nsuch as cleaning services, working as messengers and in
\noperational divisions, whose volume of work was not constant but
\nfluctuated according to market conditions.<\/p>\n
Wayan said the government was currently working to complete
\nthree new regulations to cover more aspects in industrial labor
\nrelationships.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, he urged employees to form labor unions at
\ntheir places of work in order to strengthen their positions in
\nnegotiations with their employers.<\/p>\n
"The existing laws encourage workers to form labor unions to
\nhelp them with their rights ... Companies must not try to stop
\nworkers from establishing unions," he said. (cst)<\/p>",
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