Employer in prison over charges of breaching ILO convention 87

Being sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for not allowing workers to unionize, is what happened to the director of PT King Jim, charged by the Bangil District Court in East Java after the union brought the case to court. However, he appealed to the East Java High Court. Fears over the possibility the sentence being turned down, brought hundreds of workers to rally in front of the High Court last February. ‘This is the first time that the workers’ right to associate has been legally protected. We must therefore guard it,’ said Anwar Sastro Ma’ruf of the Labour Resistance Alliance (ABM). In their speeches, the workers said that although they still faced gloomy conditions, that did not mean they had no right to associate.

They are very right to watch over this core ILO convention in times of crisis, as indeed also Indonesia has not been spared. Dismissals are likely to be unavoidable, but unions should fight for fair and proper compensation. Chairman of the Workers Alliance Congress Syahrial Romadhon says that most of the layoffs violate the Manpower Law and pay workers less than their legal entitlements, two months of wages. The workers’ union in East Java for instance, recorded that 14,090 workers from 90 companies across the province, mainly in garment, furniture, footwear and electronics, have been laid off as of March this year. Most of them were dismissed improperly and did not get due compensation.

Also SBSI reports massive layoffs. They state that contract workers are the first ones to go, as they are not entitled to severance fees. More worryingly, some garment companies closed down in Jakarta but relocated to other cities where formal minimum wages are lower.

Workers sell runaway directors’ Benzes and regain unpaid wages

Workers at a Batam EPZ company succeeded in regaining the majority of their unpaid wages by auctioning all of the factory’s moveable assets.

Minutes after announcing the abrupt closure of the electronics components company, all of PT Livatec’s managing directors absconded by ferry to nearby Singapore. They left owing around US$2.5 million in unpaid wages and severance pay to the 1,600 mostly women workers. But with the assistance of Federation of Indonesian Metal Workers Union FSPMI, an affiliate of IMF, the workers defied bank claims by occupying the factory and auctioning everything they could, including three Mercedes Benz cars left by the managing directors.

While the bank retained ownership of the land and other fixed assets, the workers succeeded in regaining around 60% of what they were owed. ‘The workers were successful because they stayed united in the face of adversity,’ said FSPMI President Iqbal Said.

Source: International Metalworkers Federation (IMF), Metal World, January 2009