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Unions double down on strike threat after wage announcements
Following Tuesday’s announcements of the 2024 provincial minimum wages, labor leader Said Iqbal, who heads several unions, said 5 million workers are gearing up for nationwide walkouts to ensure their demands are met.
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Thousands of workers from the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions (KSPI) march on Jan. 20, 2020, in front of the House of Representatives (DPR) complex in Central Jakarta to protest the Job Creation Law. (JP/Moch. Fiqih Prawira)
F
ollowing Tuesday’s announcements on the 2024 provincial minimum wages, labor leader Said Iqbal said 5 million workers are gearing up for nationwide walkouts to ensure their demands are met.
Said, who chairs both the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions (KSPI) and the Labor Party, said the goal of the industrial action was to push businesses and the government to renegotiate new numbers, as the ones finalized were dissatisfactory.
“Where’s your brain? Those governors, the ministers, [they] got an 8 percent raise, but the people only receive [3.38] percent, where’s your brain?” shouted Said at a press briefing on Wednesday, contrasting 2024 pay rises for Jakarta civil servants with those of private sector workers.
Interim Jakarta governor Heru Budi Hartono announced on Tuesday that the province’s minimum wage for next year was set to rise to just below Rp 5.07 million (US$325) from just over Rp 4.9 million in 2023. The exact numbers amount to a 3.38 percent increase.
The provinces of North Maluku and Yogyakarta saw the greatest increases at 7.5 percent and 7.27 percent, respectively, followed by East Java with 6.13 percent and Central Sulawesi with 5.28 percent.
No other province even made it to 5 percent, but as of Wednesday evening, two out of 38 provinces had yet to announce their new minimum wage.
Said had made it clear in recent weeks that unions demanded a 15-percent increase. He reiterated that figure on Wednesday and warned that some 5 million workers across the country would march for that goal with a two-day protest set to take place sometime between Nov. 30 and Dec. 13.
