PT Dirgantara Indonesia workers agree to end strike
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Striking workers at state-owned aircraft industry PT Dirgantara Indonesia are likely to return to work on Thursday following the government's assurance that the company's management would be reshuffled.
AM Bone, the secretary-general of the labor union at the company, said the union had made an agreement with Mawardi Simatupang, the director general of privatization at the office of the state minister of state enterprises, to reshuffle the management.
Bone said Mawardi agreed to hold a general shareholders' meeting for Dirgantara within the next three months to replace the current management.
"The agreement has been put down on paper, and we are convinced that the government will carry through with it, so we will end the strike by Thursday," Bone told The Jakarta Post.
Meanwhile the spokesman for the office of the state minister of state enterprises, Sumarno, denied that his office had agreed to reshuffle Dirgantara's management.
"It's too early to say that. Yes, the minister listened to the workers' aspirations, but he needs to get the other parties' opinion before deciding on the next step," Sumarno told the Post.
Earlier in the day, representatives of the labor union, known as the Forum of Communications for Employees, met with legislators and State Minister of State Enterprises Laksamana Sukardi at the House of Representatives compound.
In the meeting, union leaders reiterated their demand for the government to replace members of the management, whom they accused of corruption, collusion, nepotism and incompetence, to solve the company's various problems.
They also demanded that the government appoint a caretaker management to run the company.
At the meeting, Laksamana promised that he would look into the matter, but said: "Unless it is proven that they were wrong, our office will not take any measures against them."
Dirgantara's workers have been on strike since Monday. The three-day strike involved 9,000 people and practically paralyzed the company's operations.
The company's chief commissioner, Air Force chief Adm. Hanafie Asnan, estimated that the strike cost the company about Rp 15 billion (US$1.5 million).
Hanafie remarked that the workers' demand to replace the management was too strong, while adding that the company was improving financially. He did not elaborate further.
Hanafie said that the company had orders to produce its trade- mark CN-235 fixed-wing aircraft from a number of countries, including South Korea and Pakistan.
If the workers' demand stemmed from concern over the graft cases, Hanafie argued that all the cases had been transferred to the West Java Provincial Prosecutor's Office.
"We could have another round of talks. If necessary, we could have the manpower minister act as a mediator," Hanafie said.