Din Syamsuddin calls for dissolution of Apjati
Din Syamsuddin calls for dissolution of Apjati
JAKARTA (JP): Director General of Manpower Placement and
Development Din Syamsuddin called on labor export companies on
Monday to set up a consortia in place of the longstanding
Association of Labor Export Companies (Apjati).
The plea came on the heels of serious feuding between the
Ministry of Manpower and Apjati over labor exporters' minimum
capital.
"Labor export companies are allowed to make direct contact
with the ministry for tackling their problems, but freedom of
association allows them also to set up their own consortia to
channel their interests," Din said after a ceremony which marked
the issuance of new licenses for 146 labor export companies here.
So far, a total of 370 labor export companies have renewed
their licenses under the new decree which requires a company to
secure Rp 1 billion in minimum capital by June 1. Firms which
fail to meet the ruling will be barred from operation.
Apjati has protested the decree and asked Minister of Manpower
Bomer Pasaribu and Din to step down because of unprofessionalism.
Din said the consortia should be based on the employment
sectors and destination countries so that they could help labor
exporters cope with any problems they might be facing.
"We should no longer waste our time over so many useless
things as we do now," he said referring to the mounting feud
between the ministry and Apjati over the controversial
ministerial decree on labor exporters' minimum capital.
Apjati chairman Abdullah Umar deplored Din's statement, saying
that the government should no longer intervene in the
association's internal affairs because it could cause a division
among labor exporters.
"It is the right of every company of whether they want to
unionize in a consortia, join Apjati or stay away from
organizations," he said.
Umar suspected that Din made the statement in his bid to keep
the ministry's dominant role in labor export affairs.
"The government should limit its authority in the policy-
making process and provide a better public service to labor
exporters and workers to help solve the unemployment problem," he
said.
Zeid Arifin, chairman of the consortium of firms exporting
laborers to Singapore, said Apjati's role as an umbrella for the
existing consortia remained intact.
"It depends on whether labor exporters think Apjati is still
relevant or not, and it will be discussed further in Apjati's
extraordinary congress later this month," he said.
Immigration
Din criticized the immigration office for lacking in its
commitment to provide better service for workers applying for
passports to work overseas.
"Frankly speaking, I'm suspicious as to why the immigration
office declines to provide a one-stop service for workers, while
we frequently receive reports of illegal levies which are imposed
on workers who want to work overseas," he said.
Citing an example, Din described the high cost of obtaining
passports in Malang, East Java, and the number of workers who go
overseas without the required documents.
"In Malang, people who want to work overseas are obliged to
pay Rp 400,000 for a passport. This fee is 400 percent more
expensive than the standard price," he said.
He said that on Sunday, 40 Indonesian workers who were on
their way to Kuwait were stranded at Changi airport in Singapore
for not having the proper documents.
"The immigration office is the last stop at airports for
checking whether citizens heading abroad have completed the
necessary documents," he said.
He acknowledged that the Ministry of Manpower had also
committed many errors, but was correcting its mistakes. (rms)