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Jakarta workers, employers object to staggered office hours
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Vehicles travel on busy roads in Jakarta on March 29. (AFP/Bay Ismoyo)
T
he Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions (KSPI) and the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) have voiced their disapproval of the Jakarta administration's plan to impose staggered working hours to alleviate the city's chronic traffic issues.
KSPI chairman and Labor Party chairman Said Iqbal has expressed concern that the arrangement will disturb employees' biological rhythms and reduce their productivity at work.
"Furthermore, most workers in Jakarta live in the satellite cities. This means that those who have the earliest morning session might not be able to take their children to school while those who start work later might come home too late at night," Said said in a statement on Wednesday.
Said also noted that altering office working hours might be especially difficult for workers in export-oriented companies as they were expected to deliver their products at particular times. It would also, he claimed, make interactions between companies and their overseas counterparts more difficult.
Apindo chairman Hariyadi Sukamdani said he was skeptical about the staggered hours scheme’s effectiveness at reducing traffic congestion, claiming that shifting working times only a few hours apart would have little impact on traffic.
"Even Jakarta's odd-even license plate policy, which aims to cut the number of private vehicles on certain thoroughfares by 50 percent, could not ease congestion in the capital. I don't think altering working schedules by a couple of hours will have a significant impact on rush hour traffic," Hariyadi told The Jakarta Post.
The scheme, he added, did not address the root cause of Jakarta's persistent traffic woes – that there were simply too many vehicles for the roads to handle.
