Fired workers seek assistance from LBH
JAKARTA (JP): Eleven employees of the Jakarta branch of the state-owned PT Indah Karya have sought help from the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) over their dismissal.
The employees were relieved of their jobs on Aug. 21 on the grounds that the company has been continuously suffering losses and the sacking was in line with the management's policy of rationalization, the Jakarta office of the institute said in a statement on Wednesday.
The company distributed severance pay to some of the dismissed workers. However, a problem arose when the company gave severance pay to some employees whose wages were below the regional minimum wage regulated by the Ministry of Manpower.
The amount of severance pay the company's management gave to these employees was based on their basic wages, and not based on the component of the wage total, as regulated by the manpower ministry.
PT Indah Karya is one of the state-owned companies dealing with providing consultancy services for geotechnical planning and mapping, which is under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Works. The Ministry could not be reached for comments yesterday.
The company's headquarters is located on Jl. H. Juanda in Bandung, with branches in Jakarta, Surabaya, Ujungpandang and Medan.
Last month, the company, on the grounds of conducting a rationalization program, dismissed no less than 84 of its employees, including 11 at the Jakarta branch, 10 at the Ujungpandang branch, eight in Surabaya and 55 at its Medan offices.
The Jakarta branch of LBH said up to now, no solution to the problem has been reached in favor of the sacked workers. The mass dismissal has further spawned prolonged restlessness among the other workers still being employed by the company at its headquarters, as well as in its branches.
One of the dismissed employees in the Medan office has reportedly brought his case to the National Commission on Human Rights.
The nucleus of the problem besetting the company's employees began when the board of directors issued a set of regulations on May 2, 1994 that put employees at a disadvantage.
One of the regulations has given rise to deep concern and uneasiness on the part of the employees, because it contains drastic changes to the status of an employee, thus reducing the rights of the workers.
Before the new regulations were announced, all employees were entitled to medical allowance, pension pay and other fringe benefits.
Under the new regulations, all these fringe benefits were dispensed with, much to the chagrin and disappointment of the employees.
The dismissed employees also questioned another regulation which requires certain employees to sign a working agreement every year if they are still needed by the company, despite the fact that the workers were not hired on a contractual basis.
Under this regulation, the management can arbitrarily dismiss any worker at any time, regardless of how long they have been working at the company.
Several of the dismissed employees had been working for the company for more than 15 years. (bas)