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.