Fired aircraft firm workers go from zoo to ministry to camp

Fired aircraft firm workers go from zoo to ministry to camp

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Thousands of dismissed workers of PT Dirgantara Indonesia (PT
DI), a state-owned aerospace company in Bandung, West Java, have
refused to go home, and say they will stay for another two days
in Jakarta despite having little confidence that the Central
Committee for the Settlement of Labor Disputes (P4P) will rule in
their favor.

The chairman of the biggest trade union in the company, the SP
FKK, Arief Winardi, said that the workers would stay in Jakarta
until the central committee made a final ruling on the case on
Thursday.

"We won't go back home until we know for sure what is
happening. We are waiting for the committee's decision, which we
hope will be in our favor," he said after a hearing with the
committee at the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration Building
here on Tuesday.

The demonstration by the workers at the ministry caused major
congestion along Jl. Gatot Subroto as the workers marched from
Ragunan Zoo, where they spent the night on Monday, to the
ministry.

Lawyer Johnson Panjaitan, who accompanied the workers during
the hearing, said that both the committee and the management
should be aware that the protests could turn violent.

"The workers have decide to stay in town for another two days
to wait for the central committee's decision as PT DI management
failed to show up during the hearing. This means we have to wait
here until Thursday," he said.

The central committee hearing, presided over by Sabar
Sianturi, was adjourned until Thursday to wait for management
explanations on the many issues raised by the workers during the
hearing.

"We have to adjourn the hearing to give the management a
chance to give their side of the story. If management fails to
show up on Thursday, we will make an ex parte decision based on
the employees' arguments," he said.

During the hearing, Arief and Johnson argued against the
management's decision to lay off 6,600 of the 9,350 PT DI workers
and subsequently to dismiss them, claiming the company's
financial difficulties were caused by corruption, inefficiency
and mismanagement.

"A month after the company's financial problems were exposed
by the media in July, the labor union submitted a proposal to
save the company and avoid any dismissals, but the management
ignored this. Meanwhile, the president director was holding
extravagant meetings in four-star hotels in Bandung trying to
find a solution to the problems," said Arief.

The central committee's decision will not be final as, besides
the possibility of it being vetoed by the manpower and
transmigration minister, both sides to the dispute are allowed to
appeal to the Supreme Court.

Lawyer Kemalsyah Siregar, who represented management during
the hearing, was unable to give detailed information on the
company's financial difficulties, and failed to produce the
management's written directions ordering the layoffs and
dismissals.

The workers' are not overly optimistic of winning their case
as Law No. 13/2003 allows ailing companies to dismiss their
workers.

The Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) said it had
disbursed US$50 million (Rp 43 billion) to PT DI to provide
severance payments to the dismissed workers.

The workers have said that they will only accept the
dismissals if twice the amount of severance pay required by
Chapter 156 of Law No. 13/2003 was provided to them.

In July, the management of DI decided to lay off 9,670
employees as the company was suffering continuing financial
difficulties, and was unable to pay its debts to local and
overseas creditors, and the workers' monthly salaries.

The government then intervened by asking the state minister
for state-owned enterprises and IBRA to help solve the company's
financial difficulties.

The company, which was a pet project of former technology
minister B.J. Habibie in the 1980s, was plunged into financial
crisis after the fall of president Soeharto in 1998. Under
Soeharto, the company was regarded as a matter of national pride.

DI received an initial capital injection of Rp 1.6 trillion
when it was established in 1986. However, it was never economic
and had to subsidized by the state throughout the 1990s.

The post-Habibie administrations came to the conclusion that
the firm was a financial burden on the state.

The aircraft company produced the CN-235 and N-250, which were
much touted during the Soeharto days as shining examples of the
progress made by the Indonesian industrial sector.