Experts question HongkongBank strike procedures

JAKARTA (JP): Both the management of HongkongBank and its striking employees may have the right reasons for their actions, but have gone through the wrong procedures, according to a labor expert and a businessman.

H.P. Rajagukguk, a senior lecturer at the law faculties of the University of Indonesia and the Indonesian Christian University, and Rinaldo Thamrin, a labor expert and member of the Association of the Indonesian Businessmen both appeared to share the same view when they each spoke to The Jakarta Post yesterday.

Rajagukguk said that the workers were correct in exercising their right to go on strike and the management also had the right to dismiss them, but that they had not done so in accordance with legal procedures.

More than 200 workers of HongkongBank, located in the World Trade Center in Central Jakarta, have been on strike since April 17, following a deadlock in negotiations with the Manpower Ministry as mediator.

The issue behind the negotiations concerns the revision of the Collective Labor Agreement, which deals with various issues involving the relationship between employees and management, including wages.

The management this week sent a notification to the Ministry in addition to notification letters to the employees, saying that -- according to the law -- the workers had voluntarily resigned, having been absent from work for five consecutive days without a written explanation and valid excuse, and after being called on by the management to appear for work.

Rajagukguk referred to a certain clause in Indonesian Labor Law No. 22/1957, which says that workers can only go on strike after the local Committee on Labor Disputes has received their written notification and notified management accordingly, seven days later.

"However, workers should normally wait for as long as three weeks after they have submitted the letter before they cam go on strike.

"If there is still no improvement, workers can go on strike without permission. In fact, the workers went on strike the same day they submitted the letter," he said.

Rajagukguk said that according to the Indonesian Labor Law No. 12/1964, a mass dismissal in a private company is legal "only after getting a permit from the Central Committee for Labor Disputes".

The committee consists of representatives of workers, the management, and Manpower Ministry officials.

Meanwhile, Rinaldo Thamrin, the deputy chairman of the Association of Indonesian Businessmen who deals with bank affairs, told the Post that according to the law, workers are not allowed to go on strike while negotiations are still going on. He did not specify which law.

"Intense negotiations between the management and the workers with the Manpower Ministry as a mediator have been going on for one-and-a-half months," he said. "While it is still going on, there should be no pressure such as by strikes," he added.

Thamrin said that even though the HongkongBank management had not dismissed the workers before receiving the committee's approval, the notification letter indicated that they actually had done so.

"Maybe they should have changed the language so as not to give the impression that they had already dismissed the workers, which is illegal without approval from the Central Committee on Labor Disputes," he said.

The Manpower Ministry's Director General of Labor Standards Supervision, Suwarto, said yesterday -- as quoted by Antara -- that the HongkongBank management should pay the workers their full salaries before the committee decides on the resignation proposal.

The striking workers had earlier complained that the bank had cut off their salaries.

Rajagukguk said the management may be denying that they had dismissed the employees, but the statement that the workers are no longer the bank's employees and had no obligation to come to work showed that they were indeed being regarded as having been dismissed.

The bank's Public Relations Manager, Leila Djafar, said yesterday that the management had never said it had dismissed the workers "because there is no approval yet from the Central Committee".

"While we are waiting for an answer, we consider them as having resigned," she said. "Resigning doesn't necessarily mean having been dismissed," she added without elaborating. (03)