Flight attendants to get severance pay

Flight attendants to get severance pay

JAKARTA (JP): Bouraq and Mandala airlines agreed yesterday to
give severance pay to dozens of dismissed female flight
attendants in line with legal requirements, the employees'
lawyers said.

Christina Rini Yuliarti from the Legal Aid Institute said
Mandala Airlines agreed to pay severance pay to the 40 women at
between Rp 6 million (US$410) and Rp 16 million each.

The agreement was reached after Mandala president Veronica
Subarkah met the flight attendants at the company's office on Jl.
Garuda, Central Jakarta, yesterday.

"The company also agreed to pay the flight attendants'
salaries which had been cut by 50 percent since January," Rini
told The Jakarta Post.

She said flight attendants would meet once again on Monday
with Mandala officials to press their demand for flight fees
outstanding since February.

The flight attendants' spokeswomen, Wahyuni Widi Astuti said
the women, who were told about their dismissal on June 9,
initially demanded the company revoke the plan.

"We finally agreed to be dismissed after we were told that the
company would go bankrupt by September if the rupiah continued
plunging against the U.S. dollar," Widi said.

She said the flight attendants' salaries were between Rp
300,000 and Rp 1.3 million a month.

They could have earned between Rp 1.5 million and Rp 3 million
had the company not slashed their salaries by half in January,
she said.

The flight attendants are hopeful Mandala will pay their
outstanding flight fees of about Rp 1.5 million each.

Wearing their yellow-white-blue uniforms, the women seemed
happy with the decision yesterday. One said she would use the
money to buy a new air conditioner.

Separately, PT Bouraq Indonesia Airlines agreed to give
severance pay to its 21 contract flight attendants of between Rp
1.5 million and Rp 3 million each, the women's lawyer Surya
Chandra of the Legal Aid Institute said.

Surya said Bouraq had initially refused to give the severance
pay on the pretext that the stewardesses were not permanent
employees.

Bouraq terminated working contracts with 21 of its 50
stewardesses on March 1, he said.

Quoting an article in a manpower ministerial decree, Surya
said contract workers were entitled to severance pay, the amount
of which depended on their length of employment with the company.

Surya said his clients' contracts were valid until next year.

The flight attendants had complained to the Committee for
Labor Dispute Settlement of the Ministry of Manpower about their
dismissal. (jun)