All sides protest Batam minimum wage
All sides protest Batam minimum wage
Fadli, The Jakarta Post, Batam
After making workers wait some time for his final decision, Riau
Islands Governor Ismeth Abdullah officially raised the minimum
wage to Rp 815,000 (US$81.50) per month from the previous Rp
635,000.
The 28 percent rise, on which a final decision was only
reached at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, was greeted by protests from
both businesspeople and workers on Thursday.
The chairman of the Batam branch of the Indonesian Employers
Association, Abidin, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that
employers could not afford to pay the new minimum wage.
He lashed out at the administration for raising the wage
without considering the problems faced by businesses following
the government's decision to raise fuel prices in October.
"We let the governor decide Batam's minimum wage in the hope
that he would consider the interests of employers, but it turns
out we were wrong. We can't afford to accept this decision," said
Abidin, adding that employers had hoped the new minimum wage
would be below Rp 800,000 per month.
Following the governor's decision, Abidin, who owns
electronics assembling firm Sat Nusa Persada, said he would lay
off some of his 8,000 workers immediately, but did not give a
number.
The new minimum wage in Batam -- a prominent industrial city
that benefits from its proximity to Singapore, with many foreign
and domestic firms having factories there that ship their
products to Singapore before being dispatched worldwide -- is
lower than to the new minimum wage of Rp 819,100 in Jakarta but
higher than in Bandung, West Java, where it is Rp 710,000.
On the other hand, Batam workers say the new minimum wage is
far from adequate for them to live decent lives given rising
prices for basic necessities in Batam.
On average, workers say they need Rp 1,029,438 per month to
live, while the new minimum wage only accounts for 79 percent of
this figure.
The head of the All-Indonesian Workers Union in Batam city,
Edwin Haryono, said on Thursday that the workers would protest
the decision by going on strike.
"We want the new minimum wage to be match the cost of living,
or at least be close to it. But with this decision, we'll go on
strike as a last resort," he said.
Meanwhile, Azman Taufik, the director of the Riau Islands
Manpower and Economic Affairs Office, Azman Taufik, said the new
minimum wage only applied to employees who had been working with
a firm for less than a year.
The wages of those with more than one year's service were
calculated based on an agreement between the workers and
employers, he added.
"We also plan to cut bureaucratic costs and illegal charges
that currently burden businesses in Batam to allow them to cut
their operating costs and pay their workers the new minimum
wage," he said. "We hope that both the employers and workers will
accept this decision."