Workers protest low wages, outsourcing
Jakarta Post - September 16, 2013
Jakarta — Around 15,000 workers from the Congress Alliance of Indonesian Labor Unions (KASBI) took to the streets across Jakarta on Monday, urging the government to immediately implement appropriate minimum wage for workers.
The rally started in front of the Hotel Indonesia (HI) traffic circle in Central Jakarta at around 9 a.m., from which the workers then marched to the State Palace. “Thousands of workers have come together at the HI traffic circle,” said KASBI chairwoman Nining Elitos in Jakarta on Monday, as quoted by tempo.co.
According to Nining, the workers were not only from Greater Jakarta but also from several cities around the capital, such as Bandung, Cirebon, Indramayu, Karawang and Subang, with some coming as far from South Sumatra.
Nining said today’s rally was a continuation of their previous mass protests. The workers urged the government to quickly respond to wage-hike demands. “We also ask the government to realize its promise to ban outsourcing,” said Nining.
She said the implementation of an appropriate minimum wage was needed ensure all workers across the country had a proper income.
All this time, Nining said, all efforts to improve the minimum wage standard were still focused in Jakarta and its surrounding areas. Nining also said the implementation of an appropriate minimum wage would also minimize conflict between workers and their employers.
The Jakarta administration set a minimum wage of Rp 2.2 million (US$193), the highest among the country’s provinces, which range between Rp 850,000 and Rp 1.7 million. (hrl/ebf)
Workers want more than 10 percent hike
Jakarta Post - September 6, 2013
Jakarta — An estimated 7,000 workers from the city and surrounding areas staged a mass rally, demanding the government significantly raise the provincial minimum wages and retract a recent presidential instruction, which set the ceiling of wage increases to 10 percent.
The demonstrators, mostly members of the Confederation of Indonesian Workers’ Union (KSPI), marched from the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle to the National Monument (Monas), causing traffic to back up along Jl. Thamrin, Jl. Sudirman and the streets around Monas Square for hours.
They also besieged the Presidential Palace but to no avail as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is out of the country on a visit to Poland and Russia.
However, the labor rally was not sullied by violence as the police deployed 11,000personnel — including those from the Jakarta Military Command — to maintainsecurity and order as well as to help ease the traffic congestion.
Jakarta Police operational division head Sr. Comr. M. Chairul lauded the peaceful rally and said demonstrators complied with the police’s instruction to disperse at 6 p.m.
A large group of protesters, mostly wearing black shirts coupled with red headbands, marched with a large banner that read: “1 Januari 2014, jaminan kesehatan national harus dijalankan tanpa syarat di bawah BPJS. Tolak upah murah. Jangan berbohongpada rakyat and tolak politisasi jamsos” (the national healthcare programmust be implemented without any reserves as of Jan. 1, 2014. We reject the cheap wage policy. Do not lie to the people and do not politicize social security programs).