Dedicated worker fights for justice

Dedicated worker fights for justice

JAKARTA (JP): Joko, a 51-year-old father of four, has been
roving around not knowing what else to do to feed his family
after he lost his job in a furniture company in Tanah Abang last
month.

He became jobless when Suka Utama, where he had dedicated 20
years of his life, went bankrupt and was sold. He was a contract
worker up until he was dismissed.

"The problem is my employer fired me just like that...
without giving me a rupiah in severance pay. I have tried to see
Pak Yohanes Junaidi (his former employer) to talk it over, but he
has refused to meet me," he said.

Now Joko, who used to earn about Rp 300,000 ($32) a month,
intends to spend several days at home before moving to a
relative's house to get advise on how to claim his severance pay
which he reckoned to reach over Rp 4 million. He will also seek
advise on where to find a new job.

On a manpower ministry official's suggestion, he has solicited
the help of the ministry's Central Jakarta office. The office, he
said, summoned Junaidi for a dialog but the former employer had
yet to turn up.

On Friday, Joko met again with an official at the Central
Jakarta ministry office to beg him to speed up the process --
only to hear the bureaucrat preach to him on the complicated
bureaucratic procedures he had to carry out.

Joko did not give up. He took along a manpower official to
Junaidi's home in Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta, to press his demand.

To his astonishment, Junaidi told him he would never give him
a cent on the grounds that Joko had failed to settle the dispute
by way of musyawarah (deliberation for consensus) in the first
place and that he had prepared himself for a legal battle
instead.

"He should keep going with his legal route. If the Agency on
Labor Disputes decides in favor of him, I will pay him no matter
how much it is," Junaidi told The Jakarta Post.

Junaidi, who bluntly admitted he knew nothing about labor law,
said he did not mean to fire Joko and, instead, offered him to
work in a shop belonging to one of his relatives. But Joko
insisted that he was dismissed and therefore entitled to
severance pay.

The case will be referred to the labor dispute agency. The
battle may take weeks or even months before Joko can see what the
long wait may bring.

Joko is one of countless workers who have been dismissed
without proper severance by their employers since Indonesia began
to sink into deep economic crisis last July.

The Indonesian Women's Association for Justice (APIK), in a
statement in connection with the international observance of
Labor Day on May 1, noted that many employers used the economic
crisis to force through wage cuts on their employees or to
justify withholding their wages.

APIK called on the government to do more to stop employers
from arbitrarily dismissing employees, to take action against
companies who exploited workers and to punish owners who closed
down companies, resulting in large numbers of jobs lost, without
going through proper procedures.

Chairman of the Federation of Indonesian Workers Union Bomer
Pasaribu warned last week that as far as labor was concerned, the
worst had yet to come.

He predicted that the most difficult time would occur this
year because the fuel and electricity price increases would deal
a heavy blow on industries.

"The increase in fuel and power prices will jack up this
year's inflation rate to about 60 percent," he said. "Bank
Indonesia's increasing interest rates will put heavy pressure on
liquidity that will lead companies to the brink of collapse."

The problem will lead to unstoppable mass dismissals, he
warned. (pan)