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.