HongkongBank blamed for dispute

HongkongBank blamed for dispute

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) is
urging the Ministry of Manpower to properly enforce the labor
laws on dismissal in connection with the firing of 200
HongkongBank employees.

In written statements made available to The Jakarta Post
yesterday, the foundation's head of manpower department, Teten
Masduki, and head of operational department, Munir, asked the
ministry to postpone negotiations between the employees and the
bank management which the bank proposed be held today.

"The plan on mass dismissal has never been discussed with the
employees as required by chapter 2 of Law No. 12/1964," the
foundation said.

Today's discussion will be arbitrated by the central board of
the arbitration committee (P4P). The foundation said, however,
that P4P is not in charge of arranging negotiations between
employees and their management in such a dispute. "P4P is only
entitled to give or to deny a company approval to dismiss its
workers," the foundation said.

The bank stopped paying the disgruntled employees and has
prohibited them from entering the premises. The bank has broken
the law by doing so, the foundation claimed. Legal disputes must
not be settled by the arbitrary committee, Munir and Teten said.

More than 200 workers of HongkongBank have been on strike
since April following a deadlock in negotiations with the bank's
management. The Manpower Ministry has acted as mediator in
negotiations.

The employees said the main problem was that the management
had yet to approve the new collective labor agreement, which
deals with various issues involving the relationship between
employees and management, and wages.

Valid strike

The Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) has said that based on
Indonesian Labor Law No. 22/1957 workers can go on strike after
informing the manpower ministry following a deadlock in
negotiations.

"Thus the strike is legal," Apong Herlina, the head of LBH's
labor law department, said last month.

The director of Labor Standards at the Ministry of Manpower,
Sabar Sianturi, has said that the strike is illegal. "The workers
should not have gone strike as the negotiations had yet to end,"
Sianturi once said.

H.P. Radjagukguk, a senior lecturer at University of
Indonesia's School of Law has said that both the management and
the striking employees may have valid reasons for their actions.
"But they have gone through the wrong procedures," the lecturer
said.

According to Radjagukguk, the workers are correct in
exercising their right to strike and the management has the right
to dismiss them. "But they have not done so in accordance with
legal procedures," he said.

The foundation rebuked yesterday the HongkongBank management
for its actions against the employees.

"We want the management to reinstate the employees' rights and
give them their salaries as long as the P4P has not yet decided
on their dismissal," the YLBHI said. (sur)