Tripartite group set up to aid HI workers' plight

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Jakarta Manpower and Transmigration Agency will set up a tripartite discussion with the management of PT Hotel Indonesia Natour (HIN) and the workers' union, which represents around 1,300 employees of Hotel Indonesia and Inna Wisata Hotel.

"We will invite the workers and the management to negotiate; the agency will act only as a mediator," agency head Ali Zubeir said at City Hall on Wednesday after a meeting between the board of directors of PT HIN and Governor Sutiyoso.

He argued that discussion between the three parties was necessary to decide the fate of the workers.

PT HIN president director A.M. Suseto said last week that the company would dismiss the 1,300 employees of both Hotel Indonesia and Inna Wisata Hotel as it feared that accommodating them would only jeopardize a planned agreement with the new investor, PT Cipta Karya Bumi Indah (CKBI), a subsidiary of cigarette giant producer Djarum Group.

As of today, a 30-year build-operate-transfer (BOT) agreement has yet to be signed by both PT HIN and PT CKBI.

"The employees demanded the company keep them on as permanent workers in the new hotel, arguing that the new hotel and the supermall, to be built on the site of Inna Wisata Hotel, would create 8,000 to 10,000 jobs," Ali said.

Both state-owned hotels stopped receiving guests on April 15 and will cease operations this Friday.

PT HIN has agreed to make severance payments to dismissed employees of up to 150 percent of what they would be entitled to under Article 156 of Law No. 13/2003 on manpower.

The renovation will take one to two years.

Ali said that the majority of the existing Hotel Indonesia building, which was used to accommodate 1962 Asian Games participants, had been damaged, including electrical installations.

"The five-star hotel is subject to total renovation. Since the government has no money for the renovation project, it has invited a private investor to participate in it," he said.