Railway employees plan strike

Yuli Tri Suwarni, Bandung

The Railway Workers Union are threatening to hold a three-day nationwide strike that would cripple the operations of state-run railway company PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) unless the government takes action to improve employee welfare.

The head of the union Amien Abdulrachman said that the strike, planned for Aug. 1, was necessary to send a message to management and the government about the poor welfare of workers and retirees.

The call for a strike came on the same day that hundreds of KAI retirees marched in front of the company's Bandung headquarters to protest what they said was an inadequate pension scheme. Several of them threatened to go on a hunger strike if the pensions of the over 9,000 retirees were not improved.

Amien said that the workers and retirees would work hand in hand to get the government to meet their demands.

"We don't want the government to play around with our welfare," said Amien.

"Our salary is small compared to the workload needed to ensure passenger safety. When an accident occurs, we are always blamed," he said.

He said that the root of the welfare reduction was the change in their status from civil servants to regular company employees in 1992.

As a consequence of the status change, he said that workers and retirees received lower payments than civil servants, while also not enjoying other benefits, such as the additional month's salary given to government employees.

Hundreds of union members and retirees protested in front of the Ministry of Transportation and threatened to strike in May unless the government reinstated KAI employees as civil servants.

The strike was averted after a plea by Minister of Transportation Hatta Radjasa. In turn the union asked the Supreme Court for a judicial review of the 1992 decision, which affected over 34,000 people.

The union reiterated its demand that the government change the current management, led by president director Omar Berto, as soon as possible, due to its poor track record. State Minister for State Enterprises Sugiharto indicated last week, in the aftermath of the railway accident in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, that the government was planning to replace Berto soon.

Amien said that management had not shown any concrete improvements since being installed in February 2002.

"There has been no change in the level of service to consumers, moreover any improvement in employee welfare" he said.

When the current management was installed in 2002, the union had also threatened to strike because it was not happy with the choice of Berto as president director. The strike was called off due to widespread complaints from passengers.

The public relations head of KAI, Noor Hamidi, said that the company hoped that workers would not go on strike because it would only hurt the public, who were highly dependent on the train service.

He said that the union's demands could not be fulfilled by the management at this time because the company was in a poor financial condition.

He said that in the past five years, the government had not disbursed its obligatory public service payment, totaling Rp 1.1 trillion (about US$115.8 million).

"We ask all employees to understand that the management is not standing still, but is always constantly striving to improve employee welfare," he said.