Latief makes changes for Indonesia's workers

Latief makes changes for Indonesia's workers

JAKARTA (JP): The ink on his decree to raise the minimum wages
was barely dry when Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief disclosed
his intention to raise the level even further next April.

"My goal is to lift the minimum wages to as high as the
minimum physical need and this must start as of April," Latief
told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview.

Within the first year of his job, Latief managed to raise the
minimum wage levels in the country to almost the level of minimum
physical requirement, which is really the bare minimum
subsistence level.

Now, almost completing his second year and entering his third,
he is changing the yardstick, going beyond simply minimum
physical requirements into minimum basic needs, which also covers
health and education needs.

This he will phase in starting in April. In Jakarta, the daily
minimum wage level will be increased to Rp 4,600 from Rp 3,800.

Latief said that by the end of the current Sixth Five Year
Plan, the minimum wages will be as high as the basic needs. "This
means a worker, with his monthly salary, will be able to cover
all his daily needs.

A former businessman with strong business intuition (he built
the Sarinah Jaya business empire from scratch), Latief said there
are no excuses whatsoever for companies not granting their
workers the minimum wage levels set by the government.

He also confirmed that Indonesia has no intention of remaining
a safe haven for foreign companies looking for cheap labor as it
has been in the past, often at the expense of depressing the
wages level.

Latief promised to get tough with employers who violate the
minimum wage level. He acknowledged that the high "invisible"
costs of doing business in Indonesia has played a big factor in
causing companies to keep wages low to make savings on their
overall costs.

But the wage level has not monopolized Latief's preoccupation.

The minister has also been busy with designing programs to
upgrade the skills of Indonesian workers, about 76 percent of
whom have only primary education background.

He recently introduced his apprenticeship program, using the
ministry's vocational training centers as the core of the scheme
and enlisting the participation of companies.

This, he views, is a short cut to strengthening the skills of
Indonesian workers and therefore enhance their productivity.

Then there is the biggest headache of all -- unemployment,
which is estimated at over 29 million if one includes the
underemployed rural workers.

Latief said he hopes that many of the programs he initiated
will all be running well by the time his five-year appointment in
the cabinet is up in 1998.

"I want to be able to do 'a little' something for workers," he
said.

He also had this to say in answer to his critics who
repeatedly attacked him for his union policy. "I think it is
wrong when certain people at home and abroad criticize the
government merely over labor organization issue because it
constitutes a small part of the overall labor problems facing
Indonesia." (rms)