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City to set up team to settle Transjakarta dispute
In response to a recent strike and a protest from thousands of PT Transjakarta employees, the Jakarta administration is setting up a special team to solve an employment dispute at the city-owned bus company
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n response to a recent strike and a protest from thousands of PT Transjakarta employees, the Jakarta administration is setting up a special team to solve an employment dispute at the city-owned bus company.
The team will consist of city officials, including those from the Transportation Agency, the Labor and Transmigration Agency, and the Law Bureau, said PT Transjakarta president director Budi Kaliwono.
“This [team] was needed so that employment reform at PT Transjakarta will continue and, hence, the employees will not lose their rights,” he said at City Hall on Monday after a meeting on the dispute with the administration.
The team, he said, will work on finding causes of and solutions to the dispute after Idul Fitri.
PT Transjakarta had the workers extend their contracts, most of which expire on June 30, so that the team has time to solve the problems, which last week triggered the first strike in Transjakarta’s 13 years of operation.
A few weeks ago, PT Transjakarta operational workers, from bus cleaners to drivers, held a strike before their representatives staged a rally in front of the company’s headquarters in Cawang, East Jakarta.
The 200 representatives demanded permanent employment status for 5,800 workers in the company who had been employed since 2004 but had yet to be contracted as permanent employees.
“The problems did not arise recently. Various [employment] problems have occurred since 2004,” said Budi.
The issues, he explained, took place following the structure change of Transjakarta from a management unit of the Transportation Agency to a single city-owned business entity — hence, the name change to PT Transjakarta.
In becoming a company, PT Transjakarta faced a series of employment problems, including those pertaining to employee status and contract agreements, which were not properly organized.
Hence, since its first operation as a business unit, PT Transjakarta reformed its employment system by issuing tests, replacing employees in some positions and terminating the contracts of incompetent workers, Budi said.
Separately, recently inaugurated Jakarta Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat said that all workers could be promoted as permanent employees as long as they were willing to take another set of tests that will assess their competence and determine the position most suitable to them.
The tests will assess discipline, honesty, commitment and loyalty, he said.
“After that [taking the tests], they can sign an agreement that outlines their rights and obligations,” Djarot said. “However, if they do not want to take the tests, that is okay. It means they have to resign.”
Responding to the recent developments, PT Transjakarta employee representative Budi Marcello said the workers were basically willing to extend their contracts and wait for solutions from the team.
However, he said, they questioned the test requirement because they went through a similar process in 2015.
“At that time [2015], we were told that those passing the tests would be promoted as permanent workers,” said Budi. “Moreover, the tests seemed like a diversion to the main problem.”
The workers have been demanding permanent employment status and better work conditions in accordance with the 2003 Manpower Law, he added.
