Teachers demand improved welfare

PEKANBARU, Riau: Hundreds of teachers in the province's Communication Forum for Education Reform staged a demonstration at the provincial council compound here to demand the provincial administration and big companies help improve their welfare.

The workers also demanded the administration stop cutting their monthly wages for unreasonable reasons.

The chairman of the provincial council, Darwis Rida, who received the demonstrators, pledged to fight to improve their social welfare and asked major corporations in the province to contribute.

Mizar, representing the teachers, expressed regret that PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia, an oil mining company operating in the province, had stopped its contribution to teachers employed in schools in the mining area.

"We expect the company to also be committed to improving the quality of human resources in the province," he said, as quoted by Antara.