Workers suspended for joining protest
JAKARTA (JP): An electronic components company in Cibinong, Bogor, has suspended four of its workers because they took part in a strike and protest, the workers said yesterday.
During a visit to the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute office to seek legal advice, the four employees of PT Singamip Jaya Electronic Enterprise said they received their suspension letters Thursday after meeting with human resources manager Tumpal Butar Butar.
"We have been suspended for joining a strike and a demonstration at the Ministry of Manpower on Wednesday," Ahmad Junaedi, one of the workers, told The Jakarta Post while showing the suspension letter.
The other three suspended workers were Yayan, Tujiono and Abdul Kudus. All of them claimed to be the leaders of the strike and demonstration.
According to Junaedi, the company has also given warnings to 16 other employees who took part in the strike and rally.
"They will probably all be suspended for the same reasons," he added.
The company will cut the suspended workers' monthly salary of Rp 172,500 (US$11.33) by half, he said.
Lawyer Surya Tjandra of the legal aid institute strongly criticized the company's decision on the grounds that it violated Article 74 of Law 25/1997 on conducting a strike.
"Conducting a strike or demonstration is a worker's right which is upheld by the law."
He said the institute would send a summons to Singamip Jaya immediately to ask the company to discuss the dispute on Monday at the institute.
"We urge the company to revoke its decision to suspend the workers," he said.
Fault
According to Junaedi, about 3,000 of the company's workers joined Wednesday's strike to demand an increase in the transportation allowance and urge the company to reemploy four other colleagues who had also been suspended.
He said some of the workers then joined a demonstration organized by a union called Komite Buruh untuk Aksi Reformasi (Labor Committee for Reform Action), or Kobar, at the Ministry of Manpower on Jl. Gatot Subroto, South Jakarta, later the same day.
The rally demanded the government double the minimum wage, saying that its plan to increase it by 15 percent was not enough.
The workers also demanded an end to military intervention in labor disputes and rallies.
The union's spokesman, Lukman, said Thursday that more than 10,000 workers from 14 companies, including Singamip Jaya, had started to strike to press their needs.
However, an executive of PT Mayora Indah, a candy and cookie producer, denied yesterday Lukman's report that workers at his plant on Jl. Daan Mogot Km. 19 at Batu Ceper in Tangerang had gone on strike on Thursday.
"None of our 6,000 workers at this firm were staging strikes or protests or planning to conduct such action," Mayora's senior accountant David Lukas told The Jakarta Post.
David revealed that Mayora, half of whose products are shipped overseas, has already applied the new government regulation ordering companies to hike their employees' minimum wage 15 percent from Aug. 1.
"We already applied it this month, or a month earlier than the government's suggestion," he said. (jun/bsr)