Riau workers face weekend toil

Riau workers face weekend toil

PEKANBARU, Riau: The provincial government has found working
five days a week ineffective and is to reintroduce the six-day
week from April 1.

The Riau administration had weighed up all the consequences
before it decided to refuse the shorter working week, the
governor's secretary Rustam S. Abrus said yesterday.

"During this experimentation, we found that employees wasted
too much of their time. They generally go home for lunch and
return to work very late in the afternoon," he was quoted by
Antara as saying.

The government does not forbid employees from having lunch at
home because it has no money to provide free meals at offices, he
said.

Provincial governments across Indonesia have been
experimenting with shorter working weeks since the middle of
1994. The central government has left it up to individual
administrations to decide whether to work six or five days a
week. (pan)