4,000 Salim group workers stage pay protest at House

JAKARTA (JP): Some 4,000 workers of PT Indomulti Inti Industri, a shoe factory of the Salim Group, staged a peaceful protest yesterday at the House of Representatives.

The workers traveled to the House in hired buses from the company's plant in Citeureup subdistrict to demand that the company comply with the government's minimum wage policy.

The workers, mainly long-time employees of the company, were received by members of the House's Armed Forces faction. Some 150 people representing the workers met with eight members of the faction.

"We receive unfair treatment from the company's management as we are only paid for 26 working days per month, while our newer, colleagues are paid for 30 working days," Petinus Zeboa, spokesperson for the protesters, told the faction members.

Petinus said that most of the junior employees received Rp 156,000 each last month, while he received Rp 157,000 (US$67) despite working there much longer than them.

He said that the company's treatment was against the newly- implemented ministerial decree on minimum wages.

The decree, which became effective on April 1, increased the daily minimum wage by 10.63 percent. The decree also stipulates that permanent workers' monthly salaries must be calculated on 30 working days, not 26 days.

Rumini, another representative, said the company met with the local chapter of the Ministry of Manpower in regard to the new wage system.

"They did not include eligible representative workers in the dialog," she said.

She said the workers invited to the meeting were of the company's choice, not theirs.

Producing branded shoes, the company has four shoe manufacturing factories. Each unit employs about 7,000 workers.

The protesters were from the first factory.

Haris Sudarno, who chaired the meeting, told the workers that the faction would look into their reports.

"We will forward your reports to the government," he said, adding that the faction did not have the authority to investigative the issue itself.

He, however, maintained that the implementation of the new wage policy should not differentiate between old and new employees.

He said that employers should report to the government if they want to delay implementing the new wage policy.

A manpower ministry report reveals that of 365 companies that have lodged requests with the Ministry of Manpower to postpone introducing the new minimum wage, 52 have been approved and several have been rejected, while the rest are still being processed.

The 1969 Labor Law states that employers failing to pay the government-set minimum wage are liable to three-months' imprisonment or a Rp 100,000 fine.

Meanwhile, Yakub Natadipraja, a director of PT Indomulti Inti Industri, said that his company had complied with the new minimum wage policy.

"We have paid our workers according to the local minimum wage of Rp 5,200 per day per person since last month," he said.

He, however, failed to explain the reason why the company has treated its old employees differently.(imn)