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.