Aircraft workers protest over KKN

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Some 5,000 workers of state-owned aircraft company PT Dirgantara Indonesia thronged Jakarta on buses from their plant on Bandung to air their grievances directly at President Megawati Soekarnoputri.

But the workers, who tried to march to the Merdeka Palace, were met with layers of police lines. They failed to meet with the President who already had a busy schedule.

The workers were protesting at management's failure to eradicate KKN -- the popular Indonesian acronyms for corruption, collusion and nepotism -- in their company and to demand higher salaries.

In a written statement, the workers said they came to Jakarta to show their support for President Megawati "so that she will have no hesitation in cleaning up all state companies from the grip of corruption, collusion and nepotism."

Besides complaining at the poor management, the workers said corruption practices remained rampant at the company, previously better known by IPTN, short for the Indonesian words of Nusantara Aircraft Industry.

The workers later marched towards the House of Representatives building to take their complaints there.

The company has been beset by a series of crippling strikes in the last three years as the government, at the behest of the International Monetery Fund, stopped further funding to a company regarded as either a show piece or a white elephant.

Separately, Air Force chief of staff Marshall Hanafie Asnan, who is commissioner of the company, appealed to workers to end their strike and to "work things out" together.

"We will resolve the matter properly. But the most important thing is for them to work again because aircraft manufacturing is a strategic industry and the Air Force badly needs it," he said.

"As Air Force chief of staff, I have the greatest interest in seeing them back at work," Hanafie said on the sidelines of a rehearsal for the Indonesian Military's (TNI's) 56th anniversary celebration at the Halim Perdanakusumah air base.