About 3,000 PPD bus workers to go on strike

About 3,000 PPD bus workers to go on strike

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

About 3,000 bus drivers, conductors and staff of state-owned
Jakarta Transportation company (PPD) planned to strike on
Wednesday and attend a rally demanding President Megawati
Soekarnoputri solve the company's internal problems.

Organized by the PPD branch of the Indonesian Prosperity Trade
Union (SBSI), the workers have two main objectives: rejecting the
management's recent plan for asset divestment and demanding that
full control of the management be under the city administration.

"As a state enterprise, PPD is poorly managed because too many
parties are involved in its management. Under these
circumstances, we suspect PPD is simply being treated as a cash
cow," vice coordinator of the SBSI unit within PPD Robinson
Hasibuan told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

The rallies will be held in front of the State Palace on Jl.
Medan Merdeka Utara, and the Ministry of Finance near Banteng
square in Central Jakarta.

Bus crews had earlier threatened to go on strike and hold
their rally on Tuesday.

Currently, authority over PPD financial affairs lies in the
hands of the Ministry of Finance, operations with the Ministry of
Transportation, management control at the office of the State
Minister for State Enterprises, while control over the area of
operations lies with the Jakarta administration.

The workers have been complaining for months about the plan
for asset divestment, arguing that the company's fleet of 751
buses are all more than 10 years old, while of those, only 315
are roadworthy and serve only 44 routes of the 152 originally
allotted by the city administration.

"The government disbursed a total of Rp 203.6 billion (US$22.8
million) in subsidy between 1996 and 2001, but we have yet to see
any improvements in worker welfare, let alone new buses,"
Hasibuan said.

PPD currently employs 5,388 workers, who have the status of
public servants, as it suspended recruitment from 1995 because
its profits continued to decline, while, according to PPD
spokesman Safrudin Dahlan, the amount of subsidy was not enough
to cover the company's huge expenses.

Since the merging of seven private bus operators into PPD in
1985, the ratio of buses to staff is 1:12, which means that one
bus is handled by about 12 crew members, a far cry from the
acceptable ratio of 1:5.

The company's data shows that the average income per month is
around Rp 7.5 billion, while the expenses, including salaries,
fuel, maintenance, meal allowances and administration costs of
PPD's 15 offices and one garage amount to an average of Rp 11
billion per month.

"When the subsidy was disbursed, we were already saddled with
large debts due to the high cost of bus maintenance and
insurance, the recovery of which we had to prioritize," Safrudin
told the Post.

The poor management attracted public attention soon after PPD,
in compliance with state policy, raised staff salaries by 70
percent to 240 percent in October 2002, from an average Rp 2.7
million to Rp 5.7 million per month starting in November.

"Afterwards, we didn't receive our salaries on time, and not
the full amount. The management paid our January salary by
installments, which were only completed on March, while we only
received one quarter of our February salary. We have yet to
receive our March salary," a bus driver, Sabari, told the Post.

Safrudin said the management had considered dismissing most of
the workers, mainly administrative staff, to reach the more ideal
ratio of about 1:6.

PPD finance manager A. Gani Kamaluddin said the company would
pay Rp 50 million in severance pay.

However, according to bus crews, two employees, who had served
20 years and 24 years in the company and were dismissed earlier
this year, received only Rp 8 million and Rp 10 million
respectively in severance pay.

"The management also said the money would only be disbursed if
the asset divestment plan went ahead," Hasibuan said.