Workers suspended for joining protest
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)