Street sweepers go on strike in Medan

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

What would the North Sumatra provincial capital of Medan look like if more than 1,700 street sweepers in the city stayed away from work?

Aslan Harahap, an assistant to the Medan mayor, expressed his deep concern over the rubbish on the city's streets on Wednesday as the street sweepers went on strike, demanding the city administration pay their annual bonuses and provide them with a health insurance scheme.

Aslan encouraged the workers to end their strike but they refused to do so unless their demands were met.

"We don't need jobs, but certainty about our future and our rights," said Sabirin, spokesman for the workers in their dialog with the mayor at the local sanitation office in the city.

The demonstrators condemned the city administration as a human rights abuser after hearing from Aslan that the annual bonus to be provided by the municipal administration would be adjusted to take account of current financial conditions.

"Aslan, you talk too much. Please, go and take our aspirations to the mayor," said a demonstrator.

Before the dialog, the workers marched along Jl. Pinang Baris holding large banners and firing firecrackers to attract the public's attention.

Sabirin said the local administration should amend the status of the state-owned company that employed them and revise the remuneration system because the wage gap among the workers was widening. He also said it should register the workers with a health insurance company.

He questioned why they had been employed by a company owned by the city administration over the past five years, as they had previously had the status of civil servants subordinated to the city sanitation office.

"It has been unfair because most workers have been paid Rp 250 per day and a minority have received Rp 11.500 per day but it's not clear whether our status in the company is permanent or not," he said.

Darwis and Ponidi, who accompanied Sabirin to the dialog with Aslan, said they would continue their strike until the city administration resolved their wage and status problems.

"It's not us but you who will be ashamed to go through dirty streets in the city and let the public know our rights have been abused for a long time," said Darwis.

Lawyer Hamdani Harahap, who accompanied the street sweepers in the case, said he had delivered a letter to the Supreme Court through the Medan District Court, asking the Court to annul the mayor's decree on the establishment of the state-owned company and the change in the workers' status.

"The decree is inconsistent with Law No. 5/1962 on the dissolution of government offices," he said.