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.