Workers return home as Tyfountex bows to demands

JAKARTA (JP): A group of 850 laid-off workers of a Central Java-based textile company started heading back to their hometown of Kartosuro on Friday night shortly after their firm agreed to reemploy them and raise their salaries, one of their leaders said yesterday.

The workers, who had sought help from organizations here since Monday, hoped their company, PT Tyfountex Indonesia, would keep to the new agreement, said Abdul Latief, one of the group's leaders.

They were provided with 12 buses by the Ministry of Manpower for their return.

Speaking at a media conference at the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation office here, Abdul said the firm's lawyers had agreed to meet the workers' demands in a tripartite meeting Friday with Ministry of Manpower officials and the workers' representatives.

According to Abdul, the company promised to increase their wages 15 percent in August to meet government minimum wage standards.

"After being informed about the news, five workers fainted while the others started singing heroic songs with tears in their eyes," Abdul recalled.

None of Tyfountex's executives could be reached for comment yesterday.

The 850 workers had traveled to Jakarta at their own expense, arriving on Monday, to seek legal advice over their earlier dismissal.

Fifteen of them were injured Tuesday when police blocked them from marching on the street to the International Labor Organization office.

They then decided to camp in the Ministry of Manpower compound Wednesday after Minister Fahmi Idris refused to put his pledge to settle the dispute in writing.

Besides supplying buses, the ministry also provided the workers a total Rp 3 million in cash on Friday to help them with meal and transportation expenses on their trip home.

"Only 15 workers are still here. But we're planning to leave Jakarta this evening," he said.

According to Abdul, the company has agreed to reemploy 1,727 workers it had dismissed after they went on strike for six days from Aug. 3.

"If the company fails to meet its promise, we will stage another strike similar to the one we held in June," he said, referring to a strike in which the workers demanded a salary increase.

He said that all the workers staged a hunger strike that day to press their demands.

Abdul, who has been a worker at the joint-venture company since 1981, said the workers were ready to take over the company should it decide to close its operations in Indonesia.

"If the company decides to pull out of Indonesia, we're ready to take it over. We would set up a worker cooperative to manage the company," he said.

"We have the right to take over the company, because since it was established in 1970, it has made unfair deductions from our salary each month," Abdul said, adding that the company only paid its employees for 26 working days a month.

The workers said they were laid off by the company, which has a total workforce of 8,000 people, after their five-day rally early this month.

The workers quoted the management as saying that any workers who failed to work for over five consecutive days were considered as having resigned, and that they would not have any right to be paid. (ivy)