Workers demand minister to quit<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Three hundred workers dismissed or laid-off from
\n22 companies in the Greater Jakarta area demonstrated again
\nyesterday, demanding that Minister of Manpower Fahmi Idris step
\ndown for failing to help them.<\/p>\n
The workers, grouped in the Greater Jakarta Workers' Coalition
\n(KBJ), went to the Ministry of Manpower to voice their demands
\nafter Fahmi broke his promise to call in the workers' employers
\nfor tripartite negotiations on the dismissals.<\/p>\n
\"The minister broke his promise to mediate in the disputes
\nwith their respective managements,\" said Ariest Merdeka Sirait
\nof the Social Sciences and Legal Institute (Sisbikum), who
\norganized the demonstration.<\/p>\n
Fahmi had vowed on Monday to mediate in the disputes and set
\nup a tripartite meeting between the employers, workers'
\nrepresentatives and officials yesterday, he said. He made the
\npromise during an earlier demonstration by the workers outside
\nthe ministry building.<\/p>\n
The minister said either he, the Director General for
\nIndustrial Relations and Labor Standards Mohammad Syaufii
\nSyamsuddin, or Secretary General Suwarto would receive the
\nworkers. He also said the workers would be allowed to have
\nlawyers present during the meeting, Ariest said.<\/p>\n
\"But the minister failed to show up today. We have been
\nwaiting here since early in the morning but we have not seen
\neither him, the director general or the secretary general. We do
\nnot know where they are hiding,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"Only seven of the employers have turned up. They have offered
\nto hold negotiations in manpower ministry offices in the Greater
\nJakarta area,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Besides demanding reemployment, the 300 demonstrators, who
\nsaid they represented 21,000 newly fired or laid-off fellow
\nworkers, also demanded that the government bring an end to
\nmilitary interference in industrial disputes and asked state-
\nowned insurance company PT Jamsostek to return money which they
\nhad paid into the company's social security program.<\/p>\n
Iskandar and Sahat, two ministry officials appointed by
\ndirector general Syaufii to handle the negotiations, said they
\ndid not know where the minister or his senior assistants were.<\/p>\n
\"The workers should be blamed for the failure of the
\nnegotiations because they refused to let us mediate in their
\ndisputes,\" Iskandar said.<\/p>\n
Ariest expressed deep concern over the fate of the workers and
\ntheir families because they had no money to purchase even the
\nmost basic of food.<\/p>\n
He said that Sisbikum had distributed 3.5 tons of rice and 500
\nkilograms of low-quality milk among the 21,000 workers and their
\nfamilies over the past three days. \"We have asked for help from
\nUnicef and Suara Ibu Peduli (The Voice of Concerned Mothers) to
\nprovide the workers with at least seven tons of rice and more
\nmilk for their babies.\"<\/p>\n
He also said that he was at a loss as to how to help the
\nworkers, adding that they all had very high hopes of being
\nreemployed after the minister's promise on Monday.<\/p>\n
The workers, he said, would continue to demonstrate at the
\nministry in increasingly large numbers until their demands were
\nmet. (rms)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/workers-demand-minister-to-quit-1447893297",
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