'Higher-ranked workers involved in labor dispute'

JAKARTA (JP): Employees in labor disputes this year were not common factory workers but higher level employees, a lawyer said last week.

The Jakarta Legal Aid Institute's (LBH) Apong Herlina said employees in higher positions had sought legal advice on labor disputes.

Apong, who heads the institute's labor division, was among lawyers presenting their end-of-year reports.

She said in the past no middle level workers sought legal aid over labor disputes.

Apong said five factories' human resource managers sought legal aid from LBH.

She would not name them.

Apong said at least 10 union executives from various Jakarta factories asked LBH to represent them at the Ministry of Manpower's arbitration body.

Apong also said many companies still refused to comply with arbitration body rulings which favored workers. It was been difficult to get managements to abide by rulings, even with the help of district courts, the end-of-year report said.

The body's rulings are not legally binding and employees must go to a district court if management does not comply.

The institute's director, Luhut M.P. Pangaribuan, said this was part of the larger phenomena of people not trusting the legal system.

The system "has too often been manipulated to suit the interests of those in power," Luhut said.

The report cited the case of PT Libra Utama Intiwood, a private plywood production firm, which did not comply with the ruling of the arbitration body's city branch. Apong said management dismissed workers without severance pay and told workers the company was bankrupt. In fact, the firm moved to another area and wanted to recruit new workers, she said.

When workers asked the North Jakarta District Court to intervene the company agreed to pay severance pay.

Apong also referred to the HongkongBank case.

The Bank got the arbitration body's permission to dismiss 11 union executives. The ruling said the executives instigated an illegal strike involving 189 employees in April.

In response the Federation of the All Indonesian Workers Union (FSPSI) called for a boycott of the bank last month. An international commercial employees trade union, the Singapore- based Apro-FIET, launched a solidarity campaign.

Lawyers had said labor law prohibited the dismissal of employees in relation to union activities or employees who sat on negotiating teams between workers and management.

She said company refusals to comply with the body's rulings were increasing but she did not give figures. (07)