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)