Dirgantara president ready to quit post
Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung
Bowing to pressure from striking workers, the president of state- owned aircraft company PT Dirgantara Indonesian said on Thursday he was prepared to relinquish the top post in the firm.
Jusman S. Djamal said the resignation plan should first be endorsed by State Minister for State Enterprises Laksamana Sukardi through an extraordinary meeting of the company's shareholders.
"This still depends on Pak Laksamana as the representative of the government in its capacity as a shareholder," he told The Jakarta Post at his office in Bandung, West Java.
Jusman said it was his personal decision, but he could not say whether other members of the board of directors would follow his example.
"We have no authority to remove ourselves because it's a state-owned company. So we are awaiting a decree from Pak Laksamana. I was appointed as the company's president director by decree, so I also have to be removed by a decree," he said.
Jusman, whose term is only officially due to end in September 2004, said he would resume his teaching career if his resignation plan was approved by the government.
"Maybe it would be better to teach mathematics in my former state senior high school in Medan, North Sumatra," he said.
Earlier, around 8,000 employees of Dirgantara had staged a three-day strike that lasted until Wednesday to put pressure on the board of directors to resign.
The protesters accused the management of failing to fight rampant corruption, collusion and nepotism in the company, and being incompetent in running the country's only aircraft manufacturer.
Representatives of the company's labor union were received on the final day of the strike by Mawardi Simatupang, director general of privatization in the Office of the State Minister for State Enterprises, who promised them a reshuffle of Dirgantara's management.
AM Bone, secretary-general of the Employees' Communication Forum (FKK), said Mawardi had agreed to hold an extraordinary meeting of Dirgantara's shareholders within the next three months to replace the current board of directors.
Before the workers returned to work on Thursday, they gathered at 10 a.m. for more than 1.5 hours in the company compound to hear a speech by FKK leader Arif Minardi on the outcome of the union's meeting with Mawardi in Jakarta.
Arif told his colleagues to make sure the government kept its word. "If within three months there is no change in management, we will hold more demonstrations and a further strike as part of a bigger and stronger move," he said.
At the same time, Jusman held a meeting on Thursday with the heads of the 30 divisions in the company, and told them to continue to work hard so as to meet the target of producing at least two planes and two helicopters within the next two months.
"There is no reason for employees to lessen their zeal for work despite the change of leadership," he said.
Dirgantara has to deliver two CN-235 fixed-wing planes to South Korea's ROKAF by April at the latest, and two Puma helicopters to the Indonesian Air Force in May or June.
The three-day strike that started on Monday had practically paralyzed the company's operations.
The company's chief commissioner, Air Force chief Marshall Hanafie Asnan, estimated that the protest had cost Dirgantara about Rp 15 billion (US$1.5 million).