Some expats cry foul over loss of their jobs

By Eileen McBride

JAKARTA (JP): Mark Jones returned from his Christmas vacation two weeks ago to find he had no car.

A director of an international fast food company, he arrived in Jakarta a year ago on a two-year contract with the local company.

But last November, Jones (a pseudonym) returned from overseas meetings to find he had no office.

He now works from home. He has been able to remain in Jakarta only because his foreign parent company agreed to pick up the costs of keeping him here.

But he is philosophical about the treatment by the local subsidiary.

"These are tough times and it was a business decision. I can understand what has happened even though it is an inconvenience for me and my family. I can empathize with their situation and I would do the same if I had been in their position."

With the dramatic tumbling in the value of the rupiah against the U.S. dollar in the last few months, many companies have had to cut their dollar-based costs, leading to the sudden termination of many expatriate employees.

Unlike Jones, the vast majority of cases has the expatriate suddenly finding himself unemployed and stranded far from home.

In recent months, there has been an unprecedented, massive exodus of expatriate workers.

Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief has publicly noted the trend.

When the rupiah was its most volatile two weeks ago, there was a call by legislators to selectively repatriate foreign workers.

Latief responded that this process would happen automatically and would not need government intervention.

It is difficult to gauge the exact number of expatriates who have been directly affected by the currency crisis. But however many there were a month ago, their ranks have lessened considerably since the rupiah plummeted to an all-time low of Rp 10,000 to the U.S. dollar.

Crown Pacific moving company reported they had received double the number of inquiries in the last three months from usual expectations at this time of year.

Scott Younger from the Institution of Civil Engineers in Indonesia said the two industries most affected by the currency crisis were construction and property.

Frustrated

He said literally hundreds of people in the construction industry alone had been sent home since October.

Unfortunately, hard times have led some companies to abandon their professional integrity and breach their contractual duties to their expatriate employees.

Jane Benson (not her real name) and her husband work as engineers for the same Indonesian construction company. They said they were frustrated and disillusioned with the firm's attitude toward them.

They were told last week that their jobs had been terminated. They are now forced to return to their home country, jobless.

Jane recognized that perhaps they were "in the wrong place at the wrong time", but she said she was not prepared for the callous way they had been treated.

With only a week to pack up their offices, they have been told their employer is not going to honor their contract, which has a provision for severance pay in lieu of notice.

They have also been ordered to vacate their house by the end of the week.

This has devastated Jane, whose three children had just settled into elementary school here. Without pay for the last month, the family faces not only a prolonged period of unemployment, but they may soon also be homeless.

"We are still trying to negotiate an agreement to allow us to stay in the house," Jane said.

"The rent on our house has already been paid. Our employer has openly admitted this is not a decision based on economics. His attitude is that the world is not treating him kindly so he won't treat us kindly."

"We knew there was not much recourse if they decided to break our contract, but the level of dishonor has been beyond our expectations."

Like Jane, John Dawson (not his real name) is bitter about the treatment he received from his local bosses.

He left Indonesia in December to return to England. While he was paid according to his contract, he said the company still owed him money.

Having lived the last eight years in Jakarta and worked as the head of one of the largest property development companies in the country during that time, Dawson was stunned by the news of his termination.

Dawson acknowledged it was clearly an economic decision; as the most senior expatriate he was costing the company the most money.

But he is now in an invidious position.

"I will be 55 next month. It's very difficult to come back to the U.K. and find a job. We have children in university and we have mortgages."

In the chaos resulting from the financial crisis, the local community has failed to notice the actions of these companies.

Pride

Perhaps, like Muchsin Bafadal of the United Development Party, the feeling is that qualified locals should be in the jobs that expatriates currently hold.

But for many years companies have benefited from, and relied upon, the expertise foreign workers have brought to the market.

"Our company has always exclusively used overseas architects and engineers, the owner has even prided himself on this, because expatriates are used to dealing with deadlines and are skilled in quality control," Jane said.

"They want the international standards and skills we bring to Indonesian companies, but they do not want to pay for them."

Dawson said that in the same way the local community was concerned with the treatment of Indonesians working abroad, it should understand how expatriates were being treated in their own country.

"Expatriates are just being told to go, and nobody is asking the question of whether they are being fairly dealt with."