Enactment of labor law postponed further

Enactment of labor law postponed further

JAKARTA (JP): The government has issued a regulation which
further postpones the enactment of Law No. 25/1997 on Labor to
allow more time for the House of Representatives to revise the
controversial law.

The new regulation, No. 3/2000 was issued Sept. 25. It
postpones the enactment of the 1997 law until Oct. 1, 2002.

Tianggur Sinaga, spokesman for the Manpower and Transmigration
Ministry, said without the new government regulation, the law
would have been in effect as of Oct. 1.

She said with the extension legislators now have more time to
revise the controversial labor law.

"We were informed that the House's Commission on labor needs
more time to revise the law," she said, citing that with the new
regulation, the 1964 labor law remains in effect.

The 1997 labor law made notorious headlines when it was
strongly criticized by labor activists. It was eventually passed
under a cloud of suspicion after it was discovered that state-
owned PT Jamsostek had forked out Rp 7.3 billion to finance
deliberation of the bill.

However, the new legislature eventually canceled the law in
October 1998. Since then the legislature has been debating
revisions to the law which have yet to be completed.

Tianggur also said the government has submitted two bills on
labor protection and development, and on the settlement of labor
disputes to the House and both were being deliberated.

"The two bills that are much awaited by workers and hopefully
can be ratified within the next three months," she said.

Wages

In a separate development, Tianggur also said that the
ministry had raised the monthly minimum wage in West Java from Rp
286,000 to Rp 344,257, equal to the minimum wage in Jakarta.

"The decision was made in response to workers in Tangerang and
Bekasi who have demanded an increase in the minimum wage in the
province equal to that in Jakarta," she said.

Tianggur said the new wage level would take effect Nov. 1, two
months ahead of the government's expected announcement of new
minimum wage levels for the whole country.

Meanwhile, President Abdurrahman Wahid said in Ottawa, Canada,
that the government would likely raise minimum wages by about 20
percent.

"The government will likely increase the minimum wages by 20
percent and not by 100 percent as demanded by labor activists,"
he said as quoted by Antara news agency.

The President was responding to Indonesian Prosperous Labor
Union (SBSI) Chairman Muchtar Pakpahan who in Jakarta threatened
to stage a national labor strike if demands to raise the minimum
wage by 100 percent were not met.

"The increase (by 20 percent) is in line with the proposal of
Minister (of Manpower and Transmigration) Al-Hilal Hamdi who
briefed me before I left Indonesia," he said.

The President said he doubts whether Mochtar would be able to
organize one million workers to stage a national strike.

"I ask Mochtar and Dita Indah Sari, chairperson of the
National Labor Alliance, to realize that it is impossible to meet
their demands because it would certainly affect Indonesia's trade
overseas," he said. (rms)