Hospital told to respond to demands

Hospital told to respond to demands

JAKARTA (JP): An executive from the city branch of the All-
Indonesia Workers Union urged the management of the Metropolitan
Medical Center to heed its workers' demands through negotiations.

Alexander Sinaga, the city head of the pharmacy and health
sector at the union said yesterday that the management had not
responded to the union's request.

"It would be wrong to conclude that everything is well at the
hospital," Alexander told The Jakarta Post.

Seventy-five employees confronted the management on June 20 to
present eight demands which they said had not been responded to
by the management.

The demands included granting female workers maternity and
menstruation leave, payment of belated minimum wages and an
increase in the transportation allowance.

The hospital's personnel manager, S. Razziaty Ischaja, said
the problem had been handled by the South Jakarta office of the
Ministry of Manpower because the hospital is on Jl. H.R. Rasuna
Said in Kuningan, South Jakarta.

"The officers checked the problem and everything was sorted
out," Razziaty said. Workers' claims that they were being paid
below the minimum wage were settled, she added.

The hospital, set up in 1987, has 500 employees. The union
recorded that a large number of cleaning workers, office and
technical employees and assistants to nurses "at one of the
city's most expensive hospitals," were being paid below the
government-set minimum daily wage of Rp 5,200 per day.

Meanwhile, Alexander said the problem of wages may have been
settled, but negotiations on many other items have yet to be
conducted.

Last month, Alexander said the union had sent a letter to the
management and a copy to the National Commission on Human Rights,
calling for an end to "pressure and intimidation" of employees.

Employees involved in the protest were individually summoned
"and asked to sign statements" that they would not repeat their
actions.

"Employees and their family members have been refused medical
services," Alexander said.

"A list of those suspected to be involved in the protest was
also submitted to external parties," Alexander said, declining to
elaborate.

Executives of the hospital's union were not available for
comment. (anr)