Ministry to look into PPD drivers' complaints

Ministry to look into PPD drivers' complaints

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Manpower has instructed its local office to look into complaints by state-run PPD bus company workers -- mostly drivers -- about poor working conditions, the ministry's director for labor standards said recently.

The director, Sabar Sianturi, told The Jakarta Post yesterday that the one-month long inquiry, starting this week, will observe workers rights at the company as well as the effectiveness of the company's civil servants corps (Korpri) in defending those rights.

"We will take action if there is any violations found in the implementation of those rights, such as insufficient pay on the basis of current labor regulations," he said.

If it should be found that Korpri has not done its utmost in defending the workers' rights, "we will force it to become a mediator in discussing the workers' problems, as it should have done," he said.

Sianturi said that these are the normal procedures to take in the case of any irregularities in industrial relations in state- run companies, rather than forming a union,.

"There is no chance of forming a workers union in PPD and other state-owned companies," he said, adding that he had never received any complaints from the drivers as they had claimed.

The workers claimed they need a workers union to channel their interests and that Korpri, which incorporates the company's management in its membership, has not been supportive enough in its efforts.

The London-based International Transport Workers' Federation promised last week to help PPD drivers form a union to defend their rights. The workers earlier submitted their complaints to the Ministry of Transportation, the SBSI, the House of Representatives, Jakarta Governor Surjadi Soedirdja and the National Commission on Human Rights.

However, Sianturi admitted yesterday that it was hard for workers in state-owned or run companies to solve problems other than those concerning their rights, such as disputes with management regarding salary increases, as they have to submit their complaints to a court of justice.

"As the court procedures are quite complicated and take time, we are considering forming a workers' committee in the transportation sector," he said.

The committee, he said, would consist of representatives of the workers, Kopri and the management and would effectively function as a workers union.

Currently there are three workers committees serving 97 out of 249 state-run companies in the sectors of oil and natural gas, coal mining and agriculture, he said. (03)