Teachers to protest delayed pay

Yuliansyah, The Jakarta Post, Banjarmasin

The Association of Indonesian Private School Employees (Asokadikta) Banjarmasin chapter said Friday that it was planning to stage a large-scale rally to demand that the government give serious attention to the Rp 4 billion in overtime pay for temporary teachers that is still being held by the education office there.

The association said some 10,000 temporary teachers in 11 regencies of South Kalimantan were exceedingly anxious over the long-awaited overtime pay which was supposed to be disbursed three months ago. The payment represents their overtime pay for the past six months.

"We also demand that the government write off the 15 percent deduction to our overtime pay because the payment itself is inadequate. We depend on it to augment our income," an Asokadikta member said.

Abdullah Amin, head of the Banjarmasin Education Office, denied charges that his office was holding the funds, saying that overtime pay was handled by the Teachers' Development Center (BPG), a technical unit of the office.

BPG project manager Subri justified the delinquent overtime pay by saying that the office was still compiling the data of the temporary teachers from the 11 regencies.

"It takes time to gather the recipients' data," he said.

He was quick to add that the payment was already available and would be disbursed by the end of this month through the mail services.

"It's not true that disbursement was triggered by the teachers' threat to organize a massive protest. We've had difficulty in data collection," Subri said.