Trouble in Shangri-La
While millions of Jakartans were reveling in a binge of merrymaking celebrating Christmas, Idul Fitri and the coming of the new year, the end of the year was anything but happy for Jakarta's Shangri-La Hotel. On Friday, Dec. 22, the five-star hotel, located in the city's elite business district near Jl. Jenderal Sudirman, was forced to halt all operations, relocate guests and cancel bookings due to a strike involving hundreds of key employees. It was, in the words of hotel management, the worst dispute the hotel had experienced in its seven years of operation and one that is causing the hotel to lose billions of rupiah in revenue.
Not only were hundreds of guests inconvenienced, the strike also caused headaches for Jakartans who had booked the hotel's public facilities.
A wedding reception and a wedding anniversary celebration slated to be held at the hotel had to be canceled and moved elsewhere with little notice since the strike took management by surprise. The hosts of those parties said they only learned of the strike at the last minute when they were informed by workers they had hired to decorate the rooms. But more than personal inconvenience, if not resolved soon, the labor dispute at the Shangri-La could have consequences that ultimately affect the nation as a whole.
Labor strikes are nothing new in the climate of democratic reform that has begun to dawn on the city since the fall of the New Order regime. In the last year alone, the city has seen a string of labor strikes and frequent violent demonstrations. Still, after all the violence that plagued the city last year -- culminating in the bombings near the end of the year -- a labor strike on the order of that which is now crippling the Shangri-La Hotel is the last thing Jakarta or Indonesia needs.
The Shangri-La workers union chairman, Halilintar Nurdin, told the media that the workers went on strike after management rejected all the workers' demands, which include establishment of a pension fund, equal distribution of service charges and Christmas and Idul Fitri allowances worth four times their monthly salary. The workers also demanded management recant Halilintar's suspension.
The hotel management for its part claims that service charges have been distributed on an equal basis since negotiations between the management and the union. It also said the union had reconfirmed a collective labor agreement signed on Oct. 20 in which the workers' transportation allowance was raised from Rp 60,000 to Rp 100,000 a month and would be increased again to Rp 130,000 beginning January. According to the management, however, the union arbitrarily canceled the agreement and turned down an invitation from the management to further discuss the workers' demands.
Peter J. Carmichael, Shangri-La's Indonesia-Fiji General Manager, told the press that management had tried to accommodate the workers' demands in line with existing laws. But all overtures having failed, the dispute is now a legal matter. Legal steps will be taken to settle the strike, including the "illegal" occupation of parts of the hotel from Dec. 22 through Dec. 25.
It is not for us to pronounce judgment on this situation. That is now something for the legal authorities to do. All that needs to be said here is that it would certainly be in the interest of all -- workers and management alike -- to set aside all unreasonable attitudes and demands and work together rationally towards a solution that is both fair and practicable. As stated before, the issue may seem isolated and unimportant, but the consequences it could bring to the nation should not be lightly disregarded. Both fairness and wisdom are called for.