
Issue No 102		13 July 2001

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News

Fears Grow Over Shangri-La Protests

The unionists involved in the 8 month industrial dispute at the five-star Shangri-La Jakarta hotel are becoming the targets of ultra-nationalist elements who say the workers are pawns manipulated by foreign interests who hostile to their country.

Indonesian-media have carried stories this week - instigated by the Shangri-La hotel management - claiming the whole campaign was created and funded by the Sydney-based Asia-Pacific regional office of the hotel workers' union international, the IUF.

The long-time leader of the Shangri-La union Halilintar Nurdin

surprised his former comrades by holding a joint media conference with the hotel management blaming the dispute on the Geneva-based IUF .

The Jakarta Post this week reported that Halilintar regretted the industrial action and said that he and his colleagues had been exploited by a foreign party.

He singled out the IUF who he said donated US$10,000 between March and April as an expression of solidarity with his union.

Leader changes sides

Halintar announced he had changed sides and accepted three months severance pay money and waived any further claims against the company.

Halintar has obviously come under a lot of duress in the eight months since the dispute first started.

His decision to swap sides must be understood in this context - especially in an industrial and political climate where thugs roam around bashing and killing union activists.

But these statements by Halintar have the potential to reverberate throughout the country.

Especially now as Indonesia lurches towards a final coup d'etat against President Wahid who has in his short term in power created a democratic space under which independant unions have thrived.

It must be kept in mind that in Indonesia nationalism ( and anti-communism) has, in the not too distant past, taken murderous forms.

In the current heated atmosphere, with the country poised on the brink , naming individuals and an organization (the Shangri-La union) as agents of a foreign power clearly exposes union members to the risk of violence.

Burning left literature

Ultra-nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists have in recent months trashed bookstores and carried away for burnings books and newspapers which they deem to be communist and left-wing or promoting foreign-values hostile to the interests of Indonesia.

The Asia-Pacific regional secretary for the IUF, Ma Wei Pin, has vigorously contested Halintar Nurdin's reported comments :

" These statements have claimed that the IUF is an illegitimate party to the dispute, that the Shangri-La dispute is effectively over and that negotiation for compensation for the remaining dismissed workers continues.

" Such statements are incorrect and vigorously contested by the IUF.

" The IUF, as an international labour federation of unions, which the SPMS is affiliated to through its membership to the Indonesian Independent Hotel Workers Federation (FSPM), was responsible and duty bound to come to the aid of the SPMS when it was brutally attacked. This aid will remain constant for so long as the attack continues.

Int'l solidarity

" The IUF is not a "third party" as alleged, but very much a part of the SPMS and vice versa. Moreover, any support the IUF renders for the SPMS, either financial or otherwise, is an expression of solidarity by one section of the organisation to another.

" It is mischievous and misleading to suggest that the IUF has no right to assist or no responsibility to the SPMS, whose members and families are in need of food.

" As a result of Management's persistent actions to maintain the protracted lock-out of workers and deny them their capacity to earn a living, the IUF took the view that it could not stand by while the members and families of its affiliate were starved into submission, simply because the Shangri-La workers sought to be represented by a union of their choice, a right guaranteed under Indonesian law.

" The IUF questions the assertion that the Shangri-La Management is still negotiating with the remaining locked-out workers.

" There is no genuine negotiation taking place. The union is totally ignored by the Shangri-La Management, whose actions on industrial relations issues are led by the Lyman group, a major shareholder of the hotel.

" Instead, workers are being approached, one by one or in small groups, to accept offers of compensation to give up the struggle for their jobs and their rights."

New leadership

Meanwhile the Shangri-La workers who are still in dispute have elected a new leadership and have decided to continue their struggle - with the full support of the IUF.

In the eight months of this dispute there has been attrition over time, with many workers accepting the money, but their is still a commitment to continue the struggle by Shangri-La hotel workers.

Valentino Wagiyo, the new leader of the union, said they were consulting with lawyers to explore the possibility of suing the hotel in their campaign to be rehired under better contracts.

Valentino said management had refused a number of requests to meet with his organization, now renamed the Shangri-La Labor Union, to negotiate.

The union also denied Halilintar's claim that the IUF was behind the industrial action.

"Halilintar does not represent all of the members of the union, and his statement was misleading," said Oddie Hudiyanto a member of the union.

History of the dispute

To get more details of this on-going industrial dispute in Indonesia visit the LabourStart Shangri-La Solidarity page

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  Issue 102 contents

Interview: Jolly Green Giant
Senator Bob Brown on the upcoming federal poll, balances of power and what the Greens can teach the trade union movement.

Workplace: Call Centre Takeover
Theresa Davison brings us this real-life story from the coal face of the call centre industry.

E-Change: 1.2 Community � The Ultimate Network
Peter Lewis and Michael Gadiel look at the potential for network technologies to reconnect communities.

International: Child's Play
Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA has recently entered a new alliance with the Child Labour Schools Company to support a project for child labourers in India.

History: Flowers to the Rebels Faded
With the departure of our own Wobbly, a look at the development of the Wobblies in Australia and their view of Labor politicians and the work ethic seems timely.

East Timor: A Dirty Little War
In this extract from his new book, John Martinkus recounts the scenes in Dili immediately following the independence ballot.

Satire: Telstra Share Failure Ends City-Bush Divide: Everybody Screwed Equally
Communications Minister Richard Alston today claimed that the government had fulfilled its promise to ensure that the bush was not disproportionately disadvantaged by Telstra's privatisation.

Review: Cheesy Management
Currently climbing Australian best-seller lists is the 'life-changing' motivational book 'Who Moved My Cheese?' Rowan Cahill has a nibble but doesn't like the taste.

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