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)