Worker protests inflict losses: Apindo

JAKARTA (JP): Local industrialists said here on Thursday that a recent series of protests and strikes by workers has inflicted great losses on their companies.

Secretary-general of the Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) Purbadi Hardjoprajitno said the workers' protests often disrupted production activities for days.

"During this time of crisis, if strikes continue to happen, factories could not produce and companies could not earn profits. Whatever is demanded by the workers, be it an increase in wages or welfare, could not be fulfilled by the employers," he said at a news conference.

Purbadi said Indonesian companies, which are generally in financial distress as a result of the country's economic crisis, could not afford to meet the workers's demands for higher wages.

Some companies were forced to increase salaries to avoid massive lay-offs, but Purbadi said the decision further worsened business.

Most of the country's factories, he said, could only operate at about 60 percent of production capacity, either due to sluggish demand or lack of funds to import necessary raw materials.

"Workers should be willing to understand more about the downturn in companies' financial conditions nowadays," he said.

He said that continued protests and strikes would also discourage foreigners from investing in Indonesia.

Purbadi complained that most of the recent workers' protests and strikes did not follow the procedures set by the Ministry of Manpower.

For example, under the ministry guidelines, workers should inform company management at least one day before going on strike.

In past years, workers have gone on strike when their demands were rejected or negotiations with management were not running smoothly, he said.

"At present, workers hastily go on strike without consulting and negotiating their demands with employers first," he said.

He cited the recent strikes held by 1,300 employees of food producer PT Mayora Indah as unprocedural.

Early this month, the employees went on strike demanding the company raise their wages by 30 percent.

The strike lasted for more than five days, and striking workers also asked the company to improve welfare by raising the meal allowance to Rp 4,000 per day and shift allowance to Rp 1,500 a day.

The protesters, mostly female workers, also expressed objection to a new company regulation obliging workers to get approval from the company's medical clinic if they wanted to take menstruation leave.

The protesters held their demonstrations on the Tangerang- Jakarta toll road, causing a traffic jam that lasted for hours.

"Such strikes disrupt public activities, and cause losses not only to companies and the workers themselves, but also the general public," Purbadi said.

He explained that Mayora's management and the company's workers' union had agreed in an earlier discussion that workers wages would be raised by 18 percent.

However, some workers were not satisfied with the result of the negotiations and organized the strike.

The company and employees finally agreed to a 18 percent raise in wages and an improvement to the meal allowance.

Purbadi said that in the future employees and employers should establish better communication to avoid strikes and protests. (gis)