PTDI workers demand jobs back

PTDI workers demand jobs back

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

Suspended workers of state-owned aircraft maker PT Dirgantara
Indonesia (PTDI) threatened on Thursday to break into the
company's compound if the management refused to allow them to
return to work within a week.

The threat was made in a letter from the company's labor union
to PTDI director Edwin Sudarmo after the Bandung State
Administrative Court ruled on Tuesday in favor of the workers.

"We will break the company's gate if it remains closed to us
because we have tried to take peaceful measures through a verbal
request to police and Air Force officers who guard the factory,
and a letter to the directors," said AM Bone, secretary-general
of the Communication Forum for PTDI Employees.

The court ordered the company to revoke its resolution
suspending its 9,643 employees since July 11 this year, saying
the decision was contrary to the 2003 manpower law.

Arpani Mansyur, who presided over the trial, said that
according to Article 146 of the law, PTDI management should have
consulted the employees and the local manpower office at least
seven days before it issued the resolution.

However, the company failed to do that, he said.

Earlier on Monday, the management issued two other resolutions
-- one to withdraw the suspension decision, and another to lay
off 3,900 employees who did not contest a screening test for
reemployment.

Despite the court verdict, the company still banned the
workers from returning to work, saying it would appeal the
decision.

Bone said the suspended workers wanted to be allowed to work
again as soon as possible without necessarily waiting for a
decision by a higher court.

"The point is that our demand has been accepted by the court
and the new resolutions against the workers, issued one day
before the court handed down the verdict, must automatically be
ineffective," he said during a protest on Thursday outside the
PTDI compound in Bandung, West Java.

On Wednesday, the workers, numbering around 2,000, also
rallied outside the compound to demand they be allowed to return
to work, although the court did not clearly order the company to
also revoke its two new resolutions.

In response to the protests, Edwin Sudarmo expressed concern
over the conflict between the management and the workers, which
he said has been "politicized" by a certain group. He did not
elaborate.

He claimed the new resolutions suspending and laying off the
workers was issued in line with legal procedures, as the decision
had been approved by the company's shareholders.

PTDI director for general affairs Muhammad Nuril Fuad has said
the company had allocated Rp 130 billion (US$16.25 million) for
severance payments for the dismissed employees.

He said the 3,900 employees had been fired on the grounds they
had failed to register for a selection test to rejoin the
company.

He said the selection test had been attended only by 5,200 of
9,943 employees, and the selection outcome would be announced on
Oct. 10. Only 3,400 of the 5,200 will be rehired.

Those failing to pass the selection test will be enrolled in a
"redeployment center" program run by the company, Fuad said.