Susilo to visit Malaysia to defuse labor dispute

Susilo to visit Malaysia to defuse labor dispute

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Bogor

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will meet with Malaysian Prime
Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi during a one-day visit to Kuala
Lumpur on Monday, with the main subject of discussion to be the
sensitive issue of illegal Indonesian workers in that country.

Susilo has vowed to raise the issue of Malaysian employers not
paying Indonesian workers.

The Indonesian government announced last week it would hire
lawyers to sue the Malaysian employers, a threat that upset some
Malaysian officials, who said it was the workers who broke the
law in the first place.

"The reaction in Indonesia has been extreme ... is this the
Asian way -- to bite the hand of friendship?" the Star daily said
in a commentary earlier this week, as quoted by AP. The paper
noted that Malaysia was the first country to deploy aid workers
to Aceh following the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami.

While waiting for the salaries due to them, many of the
estimated 500,000 illegal workers in Malaysia, most Indonesians,
have refused to go home under a government amnesty program,
according to reports.

Indonesian workers perform many of the menial jobs in
Malaysia, being employed on construction sites and plantations,
in restaurants and as maids.

Susilo, who will be making his first bilateral visit since
assuming office in October, has described the nonpayment of wages
as a "serious violation" of labor rights.

Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Thursday
it was the illegal workers who were flouting Malaysian laws, and
said Kuala Lumpur did not "want this matter to involve the legal
process".

Since the government amnesty program began in October, during
which illegal migrants are allowed to leave the country without
fear of punishment, about 400,000 illegal workers, mostly
Indonesians, have left Malaysia.

A crackdown on remaining illegal migrants will begin soon but
no date has been set by Malaysia, which has already extended the
amnesty three times at Indonesia's request -- a move seen by many
Malaysians as kowtowing to Indonesia, AP reported.

Separately, the group Migrant CARE said the number of
Indonesians working in Malaysia was more than 3.5 million, with
about 2.5 million of the Indonesians working in the country
legally.

Of about 1.2 million illegal workers, 350,000 have returned to
Indonesia.

Migrant CARE said thousands of other illegal workers were
still in Malaysia because they were never informed of the amnesty
program or the impending government crackdown by their Malaysian
employers, who were afraid of a mass departure.

Many Indonesian workers also have not returned home because
their Malaysian employers have not paid their salaries, according
to the group.

Meanwhile, Ribka Tjiptaning, deputy chairwoman of Indonesia's
House of Representatives Commission IX for manpower and health,
said fellow legislators had visited Malaysia to get firsthand
information on the issue.

According to Ribka, the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur had
done little to help Indonesian workers.

"Officials at the Indonesian Consulate General know nothing
about manpower regulations in Malaysia. How can they provide
protection to Indonesian workers if they know nothing about the
regulations? The minister of foreign affairs should dismiss
them," she said in Bogor, West Java, on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Antara reported that as thousands of Indonesian
workers fled Malaysia, the money transferred monthly from the
neighboring country to the workers' home villages was sharply
decreasing.

The head of Bank Indonesia's office in Kediri, East Java,
Imbang Setiamihardja, said the amount of money transferred from
Malaysia to banks in Kediri had declined by 7.3 percent since the
workers began leaving Malaysia.

"In January and February this year, the amount of money
transferred was Rp 177.6 billion, while in the same period last
year it was Rp 191.7 billion," Imbang said.

Other regencies in the province, including Tulungagung, Blitar
and Nganjuk, have reported similar downturns in transfer
transactions, Antara said.