T

hirteen former workers of city-owned bus operator PT Transjakarta have taken legal action against the company, arguing that the company had ignored the East Jakarta Manpower Agency’s orders to hire the workers as permanent employees. The 13 plaintiffs have worked for the company for more than three years as contract workers.

According to Law No. 13/2003 on labor, the contract duration for contract workers is two years, and can be extended once for no longer than a year.

A representative of the 13 former workers, Agusthina Patty, 39, claimed that her clients had worked for PT Transjakarta for more than five years, so they deserved to be appointed as permanent workers. However, he claims the company unfairly terminated their employment.

“In June 2016, the company fired me saying that my contract had expired. In fact, I had worked for the company since 2008. I should have become a permanent worker by the time the company fired me, as stipulated in the Manpower Law,” Agusthina said after filing a lawsuit with the industrial relations chamber at the Central Jakarta District Court.

The Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta), which represents the former Transjakarta workers, said the company had terminated the employment of hundreds of people using a similar reason, namely “expired contracts.”

“The dismissed workers are those who had worked for the company since 2005, 2006, 2007 and so on, who should have been promoted as permanent employees,” said LBH Jakarta lawyer Oky Wiratama Siagian.

“We, therefore, demand that the plaintiffs be installed as permanent workers, and the plaintiffs’ dismissal be annulled,” she added.

Separately, Transjakarta president director Budi Kaliwono said the termination of the 13 workers had followed company regulations and was in accordance with the right procedures.

As a consequence, the company will not rehire the former workers again. The company will instead follow the legal process should the former workers file a lawsuit against it. “If they take legal action, we will follow the legal process,” Budi told journalists at City Hall.

Currently, there are roughly 6,000 contract employees working for PT Transjakarta. About 200 of them staged a rally at the company’s head office in Cawang, East Jakarta, on June 12, demanding permanent employment contracts. The strike left about 30,000 passengers stranded and caused traffic jams in several areas across the city.

Budi Marcello, a Transjakarta employee representative who led the rally in June, expressed his support for the 13 former workers.

“I and some other active workers at PT Transjakarta want to support our former colleagues in getting their rights and being reinstated as permanent workers as recommended by the East Jakarta Manpower Agency,” Budi said. He also hopes that thousands of contract workers at the company will be appointed as permanent workers soon because they have worked for the company for years.

“About 6,000 contract workers at the company have worked for an average of seven years. Some of them have even worked since 2004 [when Transjakarta was launched as a technical working unit],” Budi added.

Jakarta Manpower Agency head Priyono said his agency, along with other working units, including the Jakarta Transportation Agency, were discussing how to accommodate the demands of the PT Transjakarta contract workers.