Workers demand minister to quit

Workers demand minister to quit

JAKARTA (JP): Three hundred workers dismissed or laid-off from
22 companies in the Greater Jakarta area demonstrated again
yesterday, demanding that Minister of Manpower Fahmi Idris step
down for failing to help them.

The workers, grouped in the Greater Jakarta Workers' Coalition
(KBJ), went to the Ministry of Manpower to voice their demands
after Fahmi broke his promise to call in the workers' employers
for tripartite negotiations on the dismissals.

"The minister broke his promise to mediate in the disputes
with their respective managements," said Ariest Merdeka Sirait
of the Social Sciences and Legal Institute (Sisbikum), who
organized the demonstration.

Fahmi had vowed on Monday to mediate in the disputes and set
up a tripartite meeting between the employers, workers'
representatives and officials yesterday, he said. He made the
promise during an earlier demonstration by the workers outside
the ministry building.

The minister said either he, the Director General for
Industrial Relations and Labor Standards Mohammad Syaufii
Syamsuddin, or Secretary General Suwarto would receive the
workers. He also said the workers would be allowed to have
lawyers present during the meeting, Ariest said.

"But the minister failed to show up today. We have been
waiting here since early in the morning but we have not seen
either him, the director general or the secretary general. We do
not know where they are hiding," he said.

"Only seven of the employers have turned up. They have offered
to hold negotiations in manpower ministry offices in the Greater
Jakarta area," he said.

Besides demanding reemployment, the 300 demonstrators, who
said they represented 21,000 newly fired or laid-off fellow
workers, also demanded that the government bring an end to
military interference in industrial disputes and asked state-
owned insurance company PT Jamsostek to return money which they
had paid into the company's social security program.

Iskandar and Sahat, two ministry officials appointed by
director general Syaufii to handle the negotiations, said they
did not know where the minister or his senior assistants were.

"The workers should be blamed for the failure of the
negotiations because they refused to let us mediate in their
disputes," Iskandar said.

Ariest expressed deep concern over the fate of the workers and
their families because they had no money to purchase even the
most basic of food.

He said that Sisbikum had distributed 3.5 tons of rice and 500
kilograms of low-quality milk among the 21,000 workers and their
families over the past three days. "We have asked for help from
Unicef and Suara Ibu Peduli (The Voice of Concerned Mothers) to
provide the workers with at least seven tons of rice and more
milk for their babies."

He also said that he was at a loss as to how to help the
workers, adding that they all had very high hopes of being
reemployed after the minister's promise on Monday.

The workers, he said, would continue to demonstrate at the
ministry in increasingly large numbers until their demands were
met. (rms)