'Suara Pembaruan' denies depriving reporters' rights

'Suara Pembaruan' denies depriving reporters' rights

JAKARTA (JP): The Suara Pembaruan daily denied a report
yesterday suggesting that it had abused the rights of seven
journalists who are in dispute with the management, or failed to
pay their salaries.

The daily was referring to a report carried by The Jakarta
Post on Monday which, quoting a petition by fellow journalists,
suggested that the seven had gone 20 months without pay since
they were relieved of their duties on Nov. 16, 1994.

In a letter to the Post, the management explained that it had
suspended the seven journalists on the grounds that they had
"consciously and deliberately violated" company rules.

"In compliance with existing labor regulations, the management
continued to pay 50 percent of their salaries for the first six
months," the letter said.

The management subsequently offered financial assistance to
the journalists, but this gesture was turned down, it said.

The letter, signed by the publisher's president director
Soedarjo and general manager Albert Hasibuan, called the Post's
article "one sided" and "discrediting" of the daily's management.

They explained that the Local Committee for Settling Labor
Disputes had granted the management's request to dismiss the
seven journalists -- Petron Curie, Kooswadi, Isaac Sinjal,
Constantinus De Gani, Djadjan Saputra, Charles Manurung, and
Nelson Simanjuntak -- for violating the company's employee
regulations.

The ruling was later overturned by the Central Committee for
Settling Labor Disputes. The Suara Pembaruan management has since
taken its case to the Jakarta State Administrative High Court to
seek a reversal.

The letter also denied the Post's report that the management
had ignored letters of appeal from the Jakarta chapter of the
Indonesian Journalists Association and the Golkar faction in the
House of Representatives. (26)