E. Java readies workers for Brunei

E. Java readies workers for Brunei

Ainur R. Sophiaan, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya

With hundreds of thousands of Indonesians in the process of
deportation or already deported from Malaysia following a recent
riot there, East Java is preparing to send 76,000 skilled and
unskilled workers to Brunei this year.

Training for the prospective migrant workers is underway at
numerous overseas vocational training centers in cities across
East Java.

Indonesian Ambassador to Brunei Darussalam Rahardjo
Djojonegoro, who inspected the training centers this week along
with visiting delegates from Brunei, said that the vocational
skills provided there met the standards required for professional
workers.

Rahardjo made the statement when witnessing the departure of
51 workers, who had participated in the training, to Brunei from
Surabaya on Monday night.

The migrant workers were to work in the formal and non-formal
sectors and included maids, tailors, shopkeepers and construction
workers.

The ambassador further said he was impressed with the
vocational training provided in East Java for prospective workers
in Brunei despite the negative reports on other Indonesian
workers abroad.

"I will be able to sleep well after looking at this training.
Conflicts between employers and workers will not take place if
labor professionalism, like what has been displayed by the
prospective Indonesian workers during this training, is
maintained," he said.

Rahardjo said that to date there were up to 31,000 Indonesians
working in Brunei, with 15 percent of them being employed in the
formal sector and the remaining 85 percent in the informal
sector.

He hoped the composition of workers in Brunei would gradually
be changed, so that most of the Indonesians sent for jobs there
would be skilled workers and that their bargaining position would
be strengthened so that they could compete with their
counterparts from other Asian countries.

According to Rahardjo, Indonesian workers are capable of
competing with workers from other nations in facing the free
market era.

The job vacancies available in Brunei, which Indonesians can
apply for, include nurses, maids, shopkeepers, drivers, cleaners
and painters in the mining industry.

Meanwhile, East Java manpower office head Moh. Jaelani said
his province had received requests from Brunei for more than
1,100 workers, mostly skilled ones, between March and April.

To meet the demand, his office had trained 330 people as
tailors, construction workers, shopkeepers, drivers and cleaners,
he said.

At least 100 of these were students from vocational senior
high schools, he added.