International union vows to help sacked bank staff

JAKARTA (JP): A campaign to support the sacked HongkongBank workers will be launched soon by 400 unions in 125 countries, an international union leader said yesterday.

Christopher Ng, a regional secretary of Apro-FIET international labor federation, said the campaign would start next week.

He said the campaign was necessary because the federation had waited seven months for an amiable settlement to the HongkongBank dispute.

Apro-FIET stands for the Asian and Pacific regional organization of the International Federation of Commercial, Clerical, Professional and Technical Employees, which is based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Ng said the Sept. 30 decision of the Ministry of Manpower's arbitration body, allowing the dismissal of 11 union executives at the bank, violated conventions 87 and 98 of the International Labor Organization on the right to form unions and the right to collective bargaining, respectively.

"We have also sent a letter to Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief requesting him to intervene personally..." to review the decision and take the necessary steps, Ng said.

Ng was speaking to reporters before a Communication Forum of International Bank Employees' meeting started yesterday.

Kodjari, union leader at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, is also the forum coordinator.

Ng said Apro-FIET considered that the Sept. 30 decision contradicted the arbitration body's earlier ruling which ordered HongkongBank to reinstate 189 employees involved in a strike in April.

He said Apro-FIET hoped the union leaders from HongkongBank would be reinstated and that negotiations for a collective labor agreement at the bank would continue.

The dispute began when the union leaders and management accused each other of hampering negotiations on an expired labor agreement. A strike erupted when the bank workers found out that management was about to dismiss the 11 union executives involved in the negotiations.

The arbitration body intervened at the request of both parties. It eventually rejected the bank's request to dismiss the 189 employees involved in the strike.

The bank has since appealed to the Jakarta Administrative Court, while the union has applied to the South Jakarta District Court to force the bank to reinstate the 189 workers, as ordered by the body.

About 130 of the workers have not been reinstated. The others have taken up the bank's offer of voluntary retirement.

Apro-FIET and the forum of international bank employees have expressed concern over the body's ruling against the unionists.

Apro-FIET fears possible repercussions in other foreign banks, and the negative impact that the decision may have on the All Indonesia Workers Union Federation, Ng said.

Kodjari, who has worked for Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi for 20 years, said that "not one unionist has ever been dismissed" following disputes in international banks.

So far strikes have all ended in satisfactory settlements, he said.

He said the body's decision was "ironic" because the union had helped set up the forum of international bank employees in the 1980s.

"The decision is a black mark in the history of unions of international banks in this country," Kartono Adi Susilo, another Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi unionist, said. (anr)