Court rejects lawsuit calling for delay in pay rise

Achmad Faisal ,  THE JAKARTA POST ,  SURABAYA   |  Wed, 05/27/2009 1:42 PM  |  The Archipelago

The Surabaya District Court rejected a lawsuit filed by the East Java branch of the Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) on Tuesday which called for a measure promising an increase in workers' wages across the province to be postponed.

The court instead ordered that the employers implement decree No. 188/2008 as ruled by the Governor of East Java. The measure will this year see an increase in wages by an average 17.5 percent compared to last year.

Presiding judge Berlin Damanik said the court rejected the lawsuit because there was no data provided to show the ruling would cause any real losses or further disadvantages to employees.

"Actually, the employers could go another way and ask the governor to delay enforcing the wage increase," Damanik said.

Several executives of East Java Apindo refused to comment on the court's decision, saying they would first discuss it internally.

"We will hold an internal meeting first among board executives," wage division head of East Java Apindo Jhonson Simanjuntak said.

Although accepting the court's decision, certain bodies still claim the decree will have a negative impact on workers in the future.

"This is only a small victory for the workers of East Java. There are so many cases involving workers that need attention and protection," said chairman of the Alliance of Struggling Workers, Djamaluddin.

So far, he said, many companies had postponed raising their workers' salaries because the lawsuit was still being heard in the court, keeping the workers financial stability in a constant state of limbo.

He urged the authorities to take action against the hundreds of companies in East Java which were delaying implementing the pay increase. Fourteen companies have so far officially requested they delay rolling out the pay rises.

Apindo earlier claimed it objected the Governor's decree because employers were at the time suffering from the impacts of the global financial crisis.

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