Ulemas appeal five-day work week to thank God its Friday

JAKARTA (JP): A group of ulemas (Moslem scholars) has appealed to President Soeharto to reconsider the five-day work week, which will get a trial run at government agencies next month, and make Friday, instead of Sunday, the national holiday each week.

The Board of the Association of Moslem Boarding Schools in Madura (Bassra), a predominantly Moslem island off East Java, has written to the President arguing for a Friday holiday in place of Sunday to restore the meaning of the day for the Moslem people.

In Middle East countries, Sunday is usually a working day and Friday is a day off.

Bassra chief coordinator K.H. Kholil AG was quoted by the Republika daily as saying yesterday that the group had decided to intervene now before the planned trial of the five-day working week goes into effect in some government agencies beginning on Aug. 17.

The group is also arguing against the plan because, in their opinion, the work ethic among the Indonesian people is still poor. If employees are given two days holiday, national productivity will fall, Kholil said.

The inefficiency still prevailing in the government will defeat the original purpose of the five-day working plan to improve efficiency and save government spending.

The ulemas agreed that the plan would create inefficiency rather than improvement because the government had also intended to extend the employee's working time to compensate for the holidays.

Consequently, the government should provide the employees with meal allowances, said the ulemas, adding that the money spent could reach Rp 1.8 trillion annually.

Regarding their suggestion that Friday be declared a holiday instead of Sunday, the ulemas argued that naming Sunday as a free day was the legacy of the Dutch colonial rulers. "This is of course not suitable with the culture of the Indonesian people, the majority of whom are Moslems," said the ulemas.

Kholil explained that another consideration was the fact that the meaning of Friday, the day when Moslem perform their mass afternoon prayers, has been lost among many Indonesians.

He said he even heard of a ridiculous proposal by an industrial estate operator that Moslem workers conduct their mass prayer on Sunday instead of Friday, so that their work do not get disrupted on Friday.

There are others proposing to limit the break for Friday's prayer to only 15 minutes, he said.

First Assistant to the Minister of Administrative Reform H. Waluyo Ratam, said the minister's office would study the suggestions made by the ulemas.

He said that the proposal to switch the holiday to Friday is a sensitive issue.

The decision to make Saturday a holiday was made to comply with the present globalization era, he said, adding that the decision could still be revised, Republika reported. (par)