J

oining groups of workers rallying to commemorate International Workers’ Day, the Jakarta chapter of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI Jakarta) reminded media companies to provide health and work-related benefits for their journalists.

Carrying an enormous black umbrella and numerous small banners, dozens of AJI Jakarta members walked from Jl. MH Thamrin to Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat in Central Jakarta.

AJI Jakarta urged media companies to cover basic health and other work-related benefits for their journalists as mandated by Indonesian law.

AJI Jakarta head Asnil Bambani said there were still many media companies that were neither willing to register nor pay for their journalists to benefit from the Healthcare and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) and the Workers Social Security Agency (BPJS Ketenagakerjaan).

“Some media companies have also attempted to neglect their responsibility by registering their employees with private insurers with a cheaper premium and less protection than what the BPJS offers,” Asnil told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Although there has been proper research, Asnil said cases were often reported among the group’s 455 members.

BPJS Kesehatan is regulated by Law No. 24/2011 on the BPJS. An executive order, in the form of Presidential Regulation No. 19/2016, further explains that a private worker’s premium is five percent of his or her monthly salary. Through salary deduction, the company is required to pay four percent of the premium while the other one percent is paid by the employee him or herself.

Meanwhile, BPJS Ketenagakerjaan covers four kinds of benefits, namely work accidents, death, old-age and pensions. The distribution of how much the company and the worker should pay is different for each benefit.

“Many journalists fall sick due to overworking. They seek medical treatment at community health centers [Puskesmas] or hospitals using the BPJS coverage, but then get rejected because their BPJS has not been paid by their companies,” he said.

Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers) executive director Nawawi Bahrudin said most media companies in the city began to register their journalists with the BPJS in 2017 — three years after the BPJS Kesehatan was introduced by the government in 2014.

The institute, Nawawi added, was currently handling a case involving a Jakarta-based foreign media company. The media enterprise has reportedly not paid their journalists’ BPJS premiums.

“Now we’re attempting to mediate both parties: the management and the employees,” he said.

“More than 70 percent of cases reported to LBH Pers are related to worker issues. If decades ago journalists faced more oppression from outside parties, today they get more problems from their employers,” he added.

Both Asnil and Nawawi said it would be easier for AJI and LBH Pers to help journalists with such cases if they had workers unions in their respective media companies.

However, they deplored that among thousands of media companies in the city, only some 30 companies had workers unions. Of the 30 workers unions, Nawawi said only a few were active.

“Most companies consider workers unions as a threat, while in fact they are aimed at ensuring that all journalists can work well,” Nawawi said.

Earlier this year, AJI Jakarta announced that the ideal minimum wage for an entry-level journalist is Rp 7.9 million (US$566) per month. The survey, which involved 29 media companies in the city, shows that several companies pay their journalists below the provincial minimum wage of Rp 3.6 million.