The global financial crisis has hit East Java, with permits for labor layoffs increasing, and export orders, working hours and salaries decreasing.
At least 13 private companies, mostly manufacturing companies, have filed requests to the industrial court in Surabaya to dismiss their workers, after orders from the United States and Europe have dried up.
Devy Anik Pratiwi, an industrial court clerk, said on Friday official requests for massive labor dismissals were filed between Jan. 5 and Jan. 15. So far, no decisions have been made because trials are still underway, she said.
"Most employers have sought permits to dismiss their workers because their factories have stopped operation because of the absence of orders," she told The Jakarta Post.
Separately, the head of the city manpower office, Imam Syafii, said a furniture company PT Ratania Katulistiwa recently filed a request to dismiss 99 workers after a bipartite negotiation between the management and workers came to a deadlock.
In Sidoarjo, head of the regency manpower agency, Djodi Koeshermanto, said several companies had dismissed their workers and several others had laid off some workers over the past two months. The dismissals and layoffs were partly driven by the recession in United States, the companies' main export destination, he said.
"In November and December, a total of 11,000 workers in the regency were dismissed. Several workers have had their working days reduced to five, receiving a cut in their monthly salaries," he said.
Surabaya and Sidoarjo were two of seven industrial areas in the province. The five others were Pasuruan, Gresik, Mojokerto, Jombang and Malang.
The chairman of the All-Indonesia Workers Union (SPSI) Pasuruan, Suryono Pane, said his branch filed a complaint to the industrial court, protesting the dismissal of more than 6,000 workers in the regency over the past three months.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the provincial chapter of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), Erlangga Satriagung, said no parties could prevent troubled companies from dismissing their workers.
He said the crisis had started to impact the provincial economy significantly, with export volumes and activity and Tanjung Perak Port decreasing.
According to records at the provincial office of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the number of people unemployed in December 2008 was 1.3 million, while the number of poor people was 1.7 million. This figure is expected to increase by at least 10 percent in the first semester of 2009.
Erlangga applauded the government's plan to offer incentives to companies paying their workers' income taxes, to ease the global economic downturn to investors in the country, but said the ministerial decree should not be discriminatory.
Assistant to the president direc-tor of PT Maspion, Soeharto, said the government should give the incentive to his company, with its export volume to United States decreasing by 40 percent, in an attempt to salvage more than 30,000 workers in its factories in the province.
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