Management turmoil leads to mass exodus at `Sinar'
JAKARTA (JP): Management discord at the six-month-old Sinar weekly centering around former youth minister Abdul Gafur, has led to a walkout of over 20 of its editorial and marketing staff.
In a meeting with the media on Saturday, the departing employees registered their discontent with the current state of affairs and explained hat they strongly objected to the uncompromising position taken by the current management.
Recent management restructuring moves have left almost all the staffers at the magazine upset with the hasty removal of general manager and chief editor Aswin Jusar together with three of his deputies.
Djoenaedy Siswo Pratikno, one of the deputy editors, said they were removed without sufficient explanation and replaced by people at lower levels in the company hierarchy.
Among the most severe discrepancies was the installment of Sjam Alamsyah, who had previously been dismissed by Aswin, as general manager, he said. Another notable contradiction was the promotion of a junior reporter to deputy editor.
Sinar was launched in September to embrace the country's ethnic Chinese minority. One of its primary stockholders is tycoon Sudwikatmono.
Early reports of circulation reaching 30,000 gave the new magazine cause for hope before a decline in readership to less then 12,000 began to worry investors.
Representatives of the Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI) said they would provide legal council should the former employees at Sinar wish to take the matter to court, but Djoenaedy said he they had not yet decided whether to do so.
The root of the predicament can be traced back to November when Abdul Gafur, as publisher, placed himself as an advisor to the editorial board, using the drop in circulation to justify the need for his presence.
Soon thereafter a sequence of events began which culminated in the exodus of its employees.
"We are disappointed that they promote and fire people without proper reasons as well as their (management's) demonstrated lack of desire to discuss matters with employees," Djoenaedy said.
'Merdeka'
Meanwhile, the Merdeka daily, one of the nation's oldest newspapers, has also been hit by a dispute between management and its senior editorial staff.
Five staff, including chief editor Agus Salim Suhana, have been fired from their jobs by B.M. Diah, the newspaper's proprietor who also owns the English language Indonesian Observer.
Diah has accused his editorial staff of going overboard with their reporting of the loan scandal at Bank Pembangunan Indonesia. But the journalists said the action was taken to preempt their plan to demand that the newspaper comply with the government's regulation requiring newspapers to hand over at least 20 percent of their equity to employees.
The Merdeka management also demoted 13 members of the editorial board to become reporters, according to a press statement issued by the affected journalists. (07/emb)