TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

Indonesia's NET TV under fire for inviting employees to resign

The company is offering "benefits" to employees who agree to resign.

Gemma Holliani Cahya (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, August 10, 2019

Share This Article

Change Size

Indonesia's NET TV under fire for inviting employees to resign NET TV logo (Kompas.com/-)

J

ournalists and activists lambasted an Indonesian television network, NET TV, after hearing that the station, which offers free-to-air entertainment programs, is inviting its staff members to file resignation letters.

“We want NET TV to comply with the labor law [on employee termination]. We also urge NET TV employees to reject [the invitation] if the company invites them to file their resignation letters with the company. Tell the company to do the laying-off according to the law and give the employees their severance payments,” the head of the Jakarta chapter of the Alliance of Independent Journalists  (AJI Jakarta), Asnil Bambani, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

On Friday, news that NET TV would conduct massive lay-offs circulated on the internet. The news was immediately refuted by Azuan Syahril, the chief operating officer of the TV broadcaster, PT NET Mediatama Indonesia.

“We will not do any massive lay-offs; there will be no such thing. What we are doing is -- because nowadays the competition has gotten fiercer -- we are making new strategies for the company and that includes our strategy on human resources,” Azuan said on Friday, as quoted by kompas.com.

“We are not terminating them but instead we are offering to give benefits to our employees who want to resign,” he added.

The executive director of the Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers), Ade Wahyudin, criticized the company's plan, saying that it was just a scheme to avoid the high costs that it would have to bear should it use the regular lay-off mechanism that includes providing employees with severance payments.  

“Employees who resign would not get any severance pay and that, of course, would disadvantage the employees,” Ade said.

Asnil also said that NET TV should not blame their failure to manage their business on market competition.

“They just have to admit it they mismanaged their business; don’t blame the market,” he said.

The lay-off news circulated on the internet and trended on Twitter, with #NetTV retweeted more than 5,400 times as of Saturday afternoon.

Support flooded in for the TV crew from Twitter users who said they hoped the company would survive and continue to entertain the nation.

“Please Twitter do your magic. Let’s make #savenettv trend. Compared to the other TV stations only NET TV gives us high-quality entertainment programs. I’m so heartbroken," account @vqtaa tweeted.

 

Meanwhile support was also sent to NET Mediatama's official twitter account.

 

The NET Mediatama account administrator replied to the tweet by saying, “We have very kind followers. Thank you so much! 😊 ”

{

Your Opinion Matters

Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.