Employees demand higher salaries

Employees demand higher salaries

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

Thousands of employees at state plantation company, PTPN II, here
held a protest on Monday, demanding the government increase their
wages and conditions after five years with no raises.

In a noisy demonstration, the protesters threatened that if
their demands are not met within a week, they would strike and
occupy the PTPN's management office in Tanjung Morawa, Medan
city.

The chairman of the company's workers union, Indro Suhito,
said the company had not raised employee wages for the past five
years. Many workers still received incomes below the regional
minimum wage and some had not received other benefits such as
overtime pay, Indro said at the demonstration held at the
compound of the North Sumatra provincial council.

"We have been deprived for long enough."

Sugiharto, 44, a company employee, said he had been working
for the company for the past 26 years. The father of five
children said his salary of Rp 562,000 a month was still below
the North Sumatra minimum wage of Rp 610,000.

"The amount of salary I receive a month is not enough to cover
our family expenses. I often owe our neighbors money in order to
survive," said Sugiharto, whose name literally means a rich
person.

The protesters demanded that the company's directors be
replaced. "The councillors should recommend the central
government that the government fire the company's directors,"
Indro said.

Responding to the demand, councillor Sahat Haojahan Situmorang
said the council would summon the company's directors to explain
the situation of their workers.

Separately, PTPN's spokesman Jhon Modal Pencawan promised the
company would immediately pay all employee benefits that were
outstanding.