Low workers' wages

One of the most controversial issues currently concerns the wages of Indonesian laborers which, according to the regional minimum wage regulations, should be Rp 4,000 or about US$2.2 while in China, which has the "evil" communist system, workers earn a minimum of US$5.8 or Rp 13,000 a day. People might say this is strange; after all, we have the Pancasila system under which employers must treat their workers as their own kin.

This is why it is surprising to learn that a number of associations of industries intend to sue Manpower Minister Abdul Latief at the State Administrative Court. Obviously this action on the part of the associations is not in line with the proposals drawn up by the Federation of All-Indonesia Workers Associations (FSPSI).

It is no secret that FSPSI proposed a 15 percent increase of the regional minimum wages, but that a raise of only between seven and eight percent was approved. And even this was met with heated objections from employers.

So maybe the idea to require those businessmen to take a hundred or two hundred hours of Pancasila instruction is a good one. If that isn't enough, this could be increased to four hundred or six hundred hours.

-- Merdeka, Jakarta