Semen Gresik employees oppose sale
Dadan Wijaksana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Hundreds of employees of the state-owned cement maker PT Semen Gresik staged a peaceful demonstration on Friday at the Tuban regency administration in East Java to garner support to oppose the planned sale of the company to Mexico's Cemex SA de CV.
Company labor union chief Tjipto Sumarsono, who led the demonstration, was quoted by Antara as saying that if the government declined to drop the plan by Dec. 14, they would hold a massive strike.
Tuban Regent Haeny Relawati supported the aspirations of the employees, and promised to inform Jakarta of his position.
Tuban is the location of one of Semen Gresik's factories.
The protesting employees had earlier staged a similar demonstration, and planned to continue it on Monday in Surabaya, the capital city of East Java.
The provincial governor had earlier sent a letter asking President Megawati Soekarnoputri to drop the plan.
The protesters in East Java have now joined forces in opposing the government's privatization plan with their comrades in West Sumatra and South Sulawesi provinces, where Semen Gresik's two key units PT Semen Padang and PT Semen Tonasa are located, sending the government a strong message that it may have lost its last bit of provincial support.
State Minister for State Enterprises Laksamana Sukardi said on Thursday that the Mexican cement giant had basically agreed to the government's new scheme on the sale of Semen Gresik, but feared that it might back down due to concerns over legal uncertainty triggered by rising protests from various quarters.
Last week, the government unveiled a new twist to the deal, under which the government would sell the remaining 51 percent of its stake in Semen Gresik to Cemex, and use part of the proceeds to repurchase a majority ownership in Semen Padang and Semen Tonasa in a bid to appease protests against foreign control of the two units.
Cemex presently owns a 25 percent stake in Semen Gresik, which it bought in 1999.
The sale of the publicly-listed Semen Gresik is part of the government's 2001 crucial privatization program aimed at raising around Rp 6.5 trillion in proceeds. So far the government has only been able to raise some Rp 3.12 trillion from the sale of 11.9 percent shares in the publicly-listed telecommunications company PT Telkom on Friday.
A failure to sell Semen Gresik this year as planned would be a huge blow to the government not only because of the revenue that would be sorely missed, but also because of the irreparable damage it could do to already-weak investor confidence.
Growing concerns that the planned sale would not go ahead pushed the Semen Gresik shares to close lower by 1.7 percent at Rp 5,950 at the Jakarta Stock Exchange on Friday.