Pindad employees go on strike

BANDUNG: More than 1,500 employees of the state-owned military weapons factory went on strike on Thursday to protest the management's policy on the elimination of this year's education allowance for their children.

Nobody could be seen in the factory complex. The workers were just hanging around, sitting and talking at their respective departments.

No one was seen working at the workshops. The only eye- catching objects were posters and banners spread in many places in the compound.

Chairman of the Pindad workers' union Hendriarta Wardana said that the workers had no choice but to conduct the action after the failure of negotiations with the management held three months ago.

"We want the education allowance as much as our one month's salary. The official request was submitted on June 19. The management turned down our request, saying that the company was short of money," he told reporters.

He said the amount of money for the education allowance for all the employees would reach approximately only Rp 1 billion. "The figure is much less than the money spent to buy Peugeot 806 sedans for the members of the board of directors."

Pindad has a total of 3,300 employees, around 2,200 of them based in Bandung, while the rest are in Malang, East Java.

"I don't know if the Malang-based employees will also go on strike," Hendriarta said.

He said the employees of the weapons division did not join the protest. (25/sur)