Experts question HongkongBank strike procedures

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)