Bank employees' severance pay

Bank employees' severance pay

From Pikiran Rakyat

The demand by laid-off bank employees of the 38 banks liquidated by the government on March 13 for severance pay 10 times their monthly salaries makes sense. The government therefore should consider the matter with wisdom.

The government should not persist in following the manpower ministry decree which stipulates severance pay equal to two months' salary for laid-off employees. The decree should be revised because it is not just and it demeans the dignity of Indonesian workers, including the permanent employees of the liquidated banks.

This condition should attract the attention of workers, labor activists, members of the House of Representatives and the leaders of the new political parties. Even 10 months salary would not tempt bank employees to quit. They would prefer to keep their jobs or find new jobs in the banking sector. In other words, the demanded severance pay is not an excessive amount of compensation for the loss of their jobs.

I would propose the employees of the 38 liquidated banks direct their demands not to the directors or owners of the banks, but to the government; i.e. the finance ministry, Bank Indonesia, the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency, as well as the manpower ministry, the House speaker, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, senior reform figures (Ruslan Abdulgani and Ali Sadikin) and the current crop of reformists (Amien Rais, Sri Bintang Pamungkas and Budiman Sujatmiko).

This fight is of the greatest importance as the starting point in the process of raising the dignity of Indonesian workers. This is especially true if the workers are fired through no fault of their own. The fight has a wider scope for the future of Indonesian workers. Moreover, liquidated banks firing thousands of employees is no solution.

In the case of firings due to bank liquidations, the government should help by acting proactively to settle the problem of severance pay so the employees and their dependents are not abandoned. The dignity of employees cannot be equated with 10 months salary because there is still the loss of their status with the announcement of the liquidation of the banks they worked at.

SUNARTO SUKMA

Surabaya