Workers demand annual extra pay
Workers demand annual extra pay
JAKARTA (JP): Over 70 workers from seven companies in Bogor and Tangerang went to the Ministry of Manpower yesterday to protest against employer violations of the ministerial decree on annual extra pay.
The workers, under the coordination of the Social Information and Legal Guidance Foundation (Sisbikum), a non-governmental organization, called on the ministry to intervene on their behalf, claiming that the companies involved had rejected proposals for a peaceful solution which they had made.
"Only the minister of manpower has the power to force the management to comply with the labor regulation," said Khomaruddin, who works for the PT Ever Sintex garment company in Bogor.
The 70 workers claimed to represent about 1,500 other workers who, like them, are yet to receive the compulsory extra pay. The seven companies are PT Ever Sintex, PT Sungil Sejahtera in Cileungsi, near Bogor, and PT Sinar Ragam, PT Unindo, PT Trimasakti, PT OHA Kencana and PT Tebing Artanas, all in Tangerang.
Khomaruddin said the workers at his factory had held negotiations with the management on two occasions but to no avail.
Under the regulations an additional one month's wages must be paid to all workers a week before the major religious holidays, according to the religion of the workers.
"The management of my company did not even respond to a two- day strike by workers at the factory on Wednesday and Thursday," Khomaruddin said.
Protection
The ministerial decree, issued in September last year, stipulates that the additional payment must be made at least seven days prior to religious holidays. Christian workers are to receive the extra pay a week before Christmas and Moslems a week before Idul Fitri holidays.
The protesting workers also asked the Minister to protect them against dismissal by their employers on the ground that they had taken part in the demonstration.
"We are also asking for a guarantee from the minister that we won't be fired after this visit to the ministry," said Arief, a worker from PT Unindo.
Director of Labor Standards Tjepy F. Aloewie said after meeting with the workers that he had telephoned PT Ever Sintex's personnel manager, Mulyana, and had asked the company to comply with the ministerial decree on pay.
Aloewie said many teams had been sent to companies in Jakarta and surrounding areas to monitor the implementation of the extra- pay decree. He promised to ask those teams to pay special attention to the seven companies which employ the protesting workers, in order to force them to comply with the decree.
Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief is scheduled to make a tour to several companies in the Jakarta this morning to ensure compliance with the decree.
Garment
In a related development, four representatives of 176 laborers from PT Duta Busana Danastri, a garment company, said yesterday that their employer had failed to honor a promise to make a holiday payment equivalent to two months' wages prior to the Idul Fitri festival.
"The company made its promise in the presence of National Human Rights Commission members on Feb. 9. It promised to pay the workers an extra amount equivalent to two months' salary prior to the Idul Fitri festival," said one of the representatives, requesting anonymity.
The representative said that so far the company had only paid its employees Rp 101,250 (US$46), which is equivalent to one month's salary.
"We are aware that the government wages regulation stipulates that the religious festival allowance must be equivalent to one month's salary. But a promise is still a promise," She said.
However, a lawyer from Sukardjo Adidjojo Thamrin and partners law firm, which represents PT Duta Busana Danastri, said that the company had made no such promise at the meeting between the company's management, its workers and the rights commission's representatives.
"I was there at the meeting and I never heard any promise being made by the company's officials," the lawyer, Achmad, told The Jakarta Post yesterday in a telephone interview.
The labors went to the National Human Rights Commission for the second time on Feb. 14 to complain about their employer's failure to pay them Idul Fitri allowances that had previously been promised.
The laborers were received by Baharudin Lopa, the commission's secretary general, who urged the workers to try to settle the matter with the company by asking the management to pay one month's salary in line with the government regulation.
The workers' representative said yesterday that a number of workers now no longer work at the company because the management had removed certain production equipment as both a disguised form of dismissal and to enable it to claim that it was incapable of fulfilling its promise on pay.
"I know it was only a management's ploy to dismiss us without severance pay. They will say that the company is bankrupt," she said.
Lawyer Achmad said that the equipment had been removed because the company did not have as many orders as it used to.
"The removal of the equipment is also the result of frequent strikes, which have caused the quantity and quality of the company's products to decline," he said. (rms/mas)