Workers strike for fair holiday allowance
Workers strike for fair holiday allowance
JAKARTA (JP): Wood and furniture company PT Wintrad Jaya
rejected on Friday its workers' demand for proportional holiday
allowances according to their length of employment, and decided
to grant an allowance equivalent to each worker's one-month
salary.
The management said the company wouldn't allow the workers to
resume their duties until they discontinued the demand and are
ready to accept the allowance offered.
The dispute began on Wednesday as approximately 1,000 workers
staged a protest in front of the company's factory on Jl.
Penggilingan in East Jakarta.
The workers demanded the company give them holiday allowances
in proportion with their length of service, citing that workers
who have been employed by the company for between one and three
years should receive a one-month-salary allowance, those employed
for periods between three and six years should recieve a two-
month-salary allowance, and so forth.
Workers at the company each receive a monthly wage of Rp
344,000 (US$36) regardless of their length of service.
But the protest turned violent on Thursday as the company
distributed leaflets stating that it would only pay the
one-month-salary holiday allowance for all workers, due to the
economic crisis. The workers reacted angrily, vandalizing the
company's office.
All windows of the management office were shattered as the
workers pelted them with stones. Later on Thursday evening the
workers also vandalized, and then set fire, to a Daihatsu Taft
parked in the company compound.
It is not certain whether the car was the property of the
company.
As of Friday, the situation in the company was calm despite
the workers returning to continue their protest in the morning.
Dozens of police officers provided tight security.
The workers renewed their call for the proportional
allowances, but management insisted that they could not meet the
demand.
"Both sides failed to reach an agreement, therefore, the
workers said that they would continue their protest until their
demands are met," Sutrisno, a security officer of the company,
explained.
The protest takes place only two weeks before Christmas and
the Idul Fitri celebration, which will fall on Dec. 25 and Dec.
27 respectively.
PT Wintrad Jaya, an export based-furniture company, has
operated since 1985 and employs 1,300 workers. (asa)