Complaint about labor union

Acting for and in the name of Pondok Indah Hospital (RSPI), hereby we, the corporate lawyers of RSPI, would like to respond to the news item Hospital staff complain about ban on labor unions published in The Jakarta Post on July 5, 2002.

The management of RSPI has never banned its workers from establishing a labor union, as long as the process of establishing it was transparent and pursuant to the applicable legal procedures, and in accordance with the prevailing norms and ethics with the environment of said hospital.

Edi Waluyo -- as an employee of RSPI who established a labor union -- was never transparent with the said RSPI management in setting up a labor union for pharmacy and health workers, SP FARKES RSPI, and did not notify the management of RSPI that he would establish a labor union, as required in the decree from the manpower minister, No. PER.01/MEN/1994.

The aforementioned management, in this matter, never intimidated Edi Waluyo, either as an employee of RSPI nor as the functionary of said labor union, while the case of the firing of Edi Waluyo had no connection with his position as the chief of the SP FARKES RSPI. But the name concerned is presumed to have committed a criminal action against his senior. Similarly, Muchsin is also in the process of being dismissed.

Both cases are purely a matter of manpower issues and have no relation to the union they established.

H. SUDIRMAN MUNIR, Advocate, Metro Yustitia, Law Office, Jakarta