Teachers to protest delayed pay

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.