Laid-off bank employees to take to streets
Laid-off bank employees to take to streets
JAKARTA (JP): Thousands of employees of the 38 banks recently
closed by the government plan to take to the capital's streets
unless their demands for severance payments equal to 10 months
salary are met, a non-governmental organization warned on
Saturday.
Bimo Nugroho, chairman of the Professionals Society for
Democracy organization, said the estimated 17,000 employees
decided to hold street rallies to push their demands to the
government, especially the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency.
"It has already happened in Surabaya, where hundreds of the
closed banks' workers blocked the gate of the Bank Indonesia
(central bank) branch office there.
"We don't want it happens here," Bimo said in a meeting with
several representatives of the 38 closed banks at a cafe in
Central Jakarta.
He said the belated response of the bank restructuring agency
would only disrupt the return of deposits to bank customers.
According to Dede M. Yusuf, chairman of the Liquidated Bank
Workers Committee, the low-ranking employees were the most badly
affected by the closures.
"We've tried to calm down the low-ranking staff from
destructive measures. They expressed their anger at the agency's
message, which seemed to reject our demand," Dede, who also
attended the meeting, said.
He said the number of low-ranking employees, such as drivers
and office boys, was quite large, adding that their average
monthly salary was between Rp 300,000 (US$33.33) and Rp 400,000.
"We're not highly paid employees. The government should
consider this," said Dede, who claimed to represent 200 workers
from the 38 closed banks.
He said the workers rejected the government offer of a
severance payment of two months' salary, as stipulated in a
government regulation. The employees, he said, would stick to
their demand of a payment equal to 10 months' salary.
"It's a realistic demand. During such a time of economic
hardship, the money would help us at least until we got a new
job. I'm sure the government could provide the funds," Dede said.
He asked why the government could spend trillions of rupiah on
the banking recapitalization program but not a tiny percentage of
this on the employees of the closed banks.
Severance pay
According to the government regulation, a worker who has been
with a company for less than five years is entitled to severance
pay equal to one month's salary.
The maximum severance pay is for employees who have been with
a company for over 35 years. These employees are entitled to
severance pay equal to 11 months' salary.
On March 13, the government closed 38 private banks,
nationalized seven other institutions and announced plans to
recapitalize nine private banks.
The announcement prompted workers of the closed banks across
the country to demonstrate for their goal of "fair" severance
payments.
"The payment offered by the agency is too small. It would not
allow them to survive in the crisis until they get new jobs,"
Bimo said.
The meeting at Pisa Cafe developed into a "sad story" session
for some employees of the liquidated banks.
Corry Angraini, an employee of Bank Arya, told those present
that employees and executives at his bank hugged each other and
cried upon hearing the announcement.
"I could not eat and sleep for nights after the announcement,"
Corry recalled.
Dede, who was a marketing manager at Bank Bahari, said he was
earlier sure that the bank would not be one of those closed.
"At first we couldn't believe what we heard. Then we burst
into tears after we were really sure that our bank was included
in the list of closed banks," he said.
He said bank employees still believed the closure was not
simply based on technical and economic reasons, but also on
political connections of bankers. (jun)