Students protest knitting firm

Students protest knitting firm

BANDUNG: Students at the Bandung Institute of Technology yesterday staged a rally in their campus to protest the sacking of hundreds of workers by a local knitting company.

The students demanded that the government, the All Indonesian Workers Union, and the management of PT Jersindo Platknitting get together and resolve the problem to the satisfaction of all.

Some 286 out of 1,000 workers at the knitting plant were recently informed that their contracts had been terminated by Jersindo because business was slow. The fate of the other workers was not certain either because they had not been given work for the last seven to eight months.

The students said they planned to march to the office of Minister of Manpower in Jakarta if the parties concerned could not settle the problem.

Jersindo last month applied to the authorities for permission to lay off 286 of its workers. The management promised reasonable severance payments. (pet/emb)