PT Jamsostek starts helping informal workers
PT Jamsostek starts helping informal workers
Ridwan Max Sidjabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
State-owned insurance company PT Jamsostek has accepted for the
first time the full participation of 1,200 workers whose income
is not fixed in social security programs.
The workers consisting of 100 ojek drivers, 600 stevedores and
500 taxi drivers on Batam island, registered themselves
voluntarily with Jamsostek under the coordination of a
cooperative.
"All the workers are taking part in health care, life
insurance, workplace accident and pension fund programs. Their
monthly wage is supposed to be as high as the Riau provincial
minimum wage and their monthly premium will be collected through
the cooperative," Jamsostek's director of operations Tjarda
Muchtar said here at the weekend.
Unlike workers employed in the formal sector who pay their
insurance premium partly at the expense of their employers, the
ojek drivers, stevedores and taxi drivers pay the monthly premium
in full.
Since its establishment 28 years ago, Jamsostek has been
running the social security programs only for workers with a
permanent monthly income who are employed in the formal sector.
So far almost 24 million workers in the formal sector have
registered with Jamsostek.
Tjarda praised the high interest shown by workers in the
industrial bonded zone in social security programs, saying
Jamsostek would continue to promote the social security programs
among workers employed in the informal sector not only on the
island but also in rural and industrial areas nationwide.
He said Jamsostek continued to approach cooperatives and
credit unions whose members were workers employed in the informal
sector, in Medan, Pematang Siantar, Jakarta, Surabaya and Malang,
to join Jamsostek.
Tjardo acknowledged that Jamsostek had been asked to enter the
informal sector, which absorbs the majority of the workforce, in
a national movement to provide protection for all workers.
"(Participation in a) social security program is a universal
right as stipulated in the 1948 human rights declaration and
International Labor Organization Convention No. 102/1952, which
was ratified by Indonesia in the amended 1945 Constitution and
Law No. 3/1992," he said.
He urged workers to report employers who failed to register
them with Jamsostek, to the manpower and transmigration ministry
and its offices nationwide so that action against them could be
taken.
"Many employers have not registered all their workers, or have
not declared the salaries of all their workers, since social
security programs are seen as a financial burden rather than a
way of appreciating the contribution of workers," he said.
He said social security programs were particularly valuable
for those working in high-risk environments or approaching the
mandatory retirement age.