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Replace problematic foreigners: Team
A fact finding team investigating last week’s clash in Batam has recommended PT Drydocks World Graha repatriate its problematic foreign employees and replacing them
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fact finding team investigating last week’s clash in Batam has recommended PT Drydocks World Graha repatriate its problematic foreign employees and replacing them.
The team also suggested the company gradually reduce its foreign workforce and replacing their positions with capable locals.
“We expect in future there will only be foreign workers with rare [skills] and high competency here,” fact finding team chief Hayani Rumondang said Tuesday.
Batam Manpower and Transmigration Agency data shows that there are presently 4,000 foreign workers in Batam.
Besides problems regarding the foreign workers, the team also reported unfair outsourcing practices that had hurt the company’s contract workers.
“We received complaints from contract workers who said many of them were unpaid. So, the whole problem with the foreign workers was just a trigger [that ignited the older] problem,” she said.
Hayani said many workers had also complained about the hourly wage system used by subcontractor companies and Drydocks. These workers preferred monthly or daily wages, she said.
The team strongly encouraged Drydocks to commence serious talks with subcontractor companies to improve its working contracts.
Hayani said the team would hand down its recommendations to Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar. “The rest is up to the minister,” she said.
Formed by the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, the team comprising officials from the ministry was tasked to gather evidence and find out what caused last week’s riot.
Director General for Industrial Relations Mira Maria Hanartani said stricter monitoring mechanisms would definitely be applied following last week’s incident.
Commenting on this, Riau Islands Legislative Council member Riki Indrakiri said it would be better for Batam if the monitoring was directly conducted by officials from the ministry in Jakarta.
“We are facing a serious lack of monitoring officials down here,” he said.
To date there were only nine monitoring officials in Batam, tasked to monitor 4,000 foreign workers there, he said.
Data show that Drydocks uses 30 subcontractor companies at its three Batam yards, each of which employs 16,000 workers.
Drydocks World Southeast Asia chief executive officer Denis Welch denied allegations there were disharmonious relations between the company’s foreign and local staff.
“Since taking over the yards in 2008, we have enjoyed excellent relations between our multi-national, multi-ethnic workforce, employed on Batam without a single formal complaint being lodged by any worker,” he said in a press release.
However, Welch encouraged workers to file complaints according to the company’s procedure whenever they received any ill-treatment in the workplace.
Welch said Drydocks had reopened two of its three yards, namely Pertama and Nanindah.
He added that the company aimed to transfer skills to local residents, thus reducing the number of foreigners it employed.
“In 2008, the number of directly employed Indonesians stood at 1,400 and today that figure has reached 5,688 local workers,” he said.
