Singamip workers take their complaint to DPR

Singamip workers take their complaint to DPR

JAKARTA (JP): Some 200 workers of the PT Singamip Jaya
Enterprise Electronic company on the third day of their strike
yesterday expressed their grievances to the House of
Representatives.

Meeting with no less than eight legislators from the
Indonesian Democratic faction (PDI), the workers listed their
demands, which included a daily food allowance of Rp 1,500 (57
U.S. cents), and transportation annuity of Rp 1,000.

The workers' spokesman, Adil Cahyono, said since 1991 they
were only given a coupon worth Rp 100 for their food allowance
and that the company had not provided transportation money.

Other demands included easier permission for vacations and
menstrual leave.

"In our company there's no menstrual leave," Nurtini, one of
the mostly young women who participated in the demonstration,
told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

The company, located near Bogor, West Java, has a labor force
of about 3,500 and produces electrical components which it
supplies to Sony.

The workers were also demanding the right to form a union free
of interference from management.

"We want it to be free from the collusion of the businessmen,"
Adil Cahyono said.

Workers yesterday also claimed to legislators that they were
treated unfairly. Ujang, a worker from the company's mechanics
division, said he was fined Rp 2,000 because he forgot to wear
his identification card at work.

Separately, an executive at the company, identifying himself
as Shaffiq, told the Post over the phone that the company
welcomed the workers desire to form a union and that it was the
workers themselves who had failed to do so on their own accord.

He argued that the strike was really being incited by Agus
Ponindar, a worker who had been discharged by the company for his
irresponsibility at work.

Shaffiq, the company's production manager, further refuted
earlier reports that 2,000 workers had joined the strike,
contending that only a dwindling 200 had walked off the assembly
line on the first day. (03/mds)