Rival camps of labor export companies fail to reconcile

Rival camps of labor export companies fail to reconcile

JAKARTA (JP): The two conflicting camps in the Association of
Labor Export Companies Association (Apjati) failed to reconcile
on Saturday because one of the warring parties failed to attend
an agreed congress.

Apjati chairman Mahfudzt Djailani expressed his disappointment
over the absence of the splinter Apjati Reformasi executives
despite receiving their agreement to attend the congress which
was meant to reunite the two camps.

"I do not want a... conflict in the association. But if they
(the Apjati Reformasi's executives) do not want to reconcile,
there is no other alternative but a divorce. We will remain
split," he told The Jakarta Post in a break at the congress at
the Jakarta Convention Center in Senayan, Central Jakarta on
Saturday.

Munir Achmad, president of labor export company PT Bina Usaha
Malindo, also regretted the development. He said the other camp
might have refused to come because it was afraid of not being
included on the new central board.

He said that in a recent meeting with Minister of Manpower
Fahmi Idris both sides agreed to attend and patch up their
differences.

He said the current board's executives would lose a number of
perks if they were not included on the new board. Among the perks
were a portion of legal levies collected from all workers
employed overseas, and information on job orders from foreign
labor importers.

Abdullah Puteh and Anton Sihombing, respectively chairman and
secretary-general of Apjati Reformasi, were not available for
comment on Saturday.

Mahfudzt warned that the ongoing war over the recruitment
tariff would also continue among labor export companies if the
conflict was not resolved soon.

"This war will generate losses for all labor export companies
as well as our workers," he said.

He revealed that many companies had charged workers about
US$500 in a recruitment fee, while Apjati had set the recruitment
fee to be at least $900 per worker.

Mahfudzt said that Apjati would work hard to reach the
government target of sending two million workers abroad next year
to generate an expected revenue of $5 billion for Indonesia.

About one million Indonesians are currently working overseas
and generating approximately $3.5 billion in foreign exchange.

"Labor exports must be boosted to help ease unemployment at
home and increase government income from the sector," he said.

In a related development, the splinter group of the All
Indonesian Workers Union Federation (FSPSI Reformasi) called on
the government to take over the FSPSI headquarters currently
being occupied by a group of workers, and hand it over to the
organization so it could continue serving the workers.

Union secretary-general Mohammad Rodja said he had contacted
Datuk Bagindo, who used to chair FSPSI but had agreed to hand
over the FSPSI leadership to FSPSI Reformasi's central board.

FSPSI was divided after Datuk failed to form a pure federation
in the labor organization and to channel the aspirations of the
sectoral trade unions.

Eleven of 13 sectoral unions have withdrawn their
representatives from the federation and formed FSPSI Reformasi.
It also has recently held a congress that elected Hartono as the
new president and Rodja secretary-general. (rms)