Survey workers protest dismissals

JAKARTA (JP): Twelve people who were fired from their jobs at a surveying firm visited the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute on Tuesday seeking advice in their efforts to fight the dismissals.

The former employees of PT Survey Research Indonesia, a subsidiary of the Belgian firm AC Nielsen, demanded the company reemploy them.

"Should the firm refuse to reemploy us, we want severance pay in accordance with manpower regulations," the employees' spokesman, Abednego, said.

He said the firm owes between Rp 5 million and Rp 10 million in severance pay to each of the employees.

He added that the workers had been with the company for between five and 10 years on the basis of annual contracts before they were dismissed last month.

The company claimed that the economic crisis forced management to dismiss the employees.

"But in our opinion, the dismissals were mainly due to our continuous questioning of the company about our working status," Abednego stated.

For example, he said some employees at the company who had been promoted to supervisors were still identified as interpreters in their contracts.

Abednego did not specify the total number of employees at the surveying firm, but said that average monthly salaries ranged between Rp 500,000 and Rp 1 million.

Executives at the company could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Lawyer Rino Subagyo of the institute said he discovered that the company tried to deceive the employees by asking them to take a one month leave before renewing their contracts, while, in fact, the company had no intention of retaining the workers. (jun)