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Issue No. 130 | 05 April 2002 |
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Lights Out on The Hill
Interview: Change Agent Industrial: Balancing the Books Unions: Breaking Out Politics: Pissing on the Light on the Hill History: Of Death and Taxes International: Now That's a Strike! Satire: Mugabe Voted Miss Zimbabwe: Denies Election Rigged Poetry: Flick Go The Branches Review: Red, Red Clydeside
The Soapbox Sport Week in Review Postcard
 Puplick's SermonChikka's LegacySocialists in the UKOrganising GloballyGrape DisappointmentUnion Resignations : Crisis or Opportunity?
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News Small Victory at Shangri-La
Following an application by Shangri-La management, the Ministry of Manpower dispute resolution committee (P4P) approved the dismissal of close to 600 of the hotel's workers in May, 2001. According to the Jakarta newspaper Tempo, the Judges' Panel of the State Administrative High Court, "handed down four injunctions. The first rejected the demurrer of the Shangri-La management. The second overturned the P4P decision. The third asked the hotel to reinstate the sacked workers. The fourth required the defendants P4P and the Shangri-La Hotel respectively to pay court costs." Since hotel management locked the workers out of their jobs over 16 months ago, Shangri-La workers have had to face injustice, assault and intimidation. The only "unacceptable act" Shangri-La workers ever committed was their desire to secure proper work conditions and exercise trade union rights. Early in the dispute the management and owners of the hotel adopted a strategy designed purely and simply to crush any resistance from the workers. The hotel owners launched a lawsuit targeting five Shangri-La leaders, their federation representative and the Indonesian representative of the hotel workers international, the IUF. The lawsuit claimed damages in the order of US$13 million. Despite widespread evidence that the workers had at all times acted within the law, the notorious South Jakarta district court awarded in favour of the owners and fined the Shangri-La workers and their fellow defendants US$2 million. While this was well below the initial amount sought, the figure was nonetheless equally outrageous, as the seven affected workers face permanent indebtedness and will lose their homes and livelihoods if the fine is upheld. The decision of the State Administrative High Court rectifies the previous decisions of the Indonesian legal system in this case. While the civil suit remains, the Administrative Court's decision reverses the sham procedure undertaken at P4P, which legitimised management's decision to fire the workers. As such, the ludicrous nature of the civil suit stands out. However, the decision ordering management to reinstate the workers is yet to be implemented. The Ministry of Manpower has yet to confirm or deny whether it will appeal the Administrative Court's decision to the Supreme Court. The appeal lodged by the Shangri-La workers against the US$2 million fine from the civil court is pending. The management and owners of the hotel have responded that they will appeal the Administrative Court's decision. This means the Shangri-La workers' struggle continues. Yet the workers have made an important breakthrough. They have never broken the laws of Indonesia and have only ever asked the hotel's owners and management to respect those laws, which guarantees basic trade union rights. As Secretary of the Shangri-La workers' union, Odie Hudiyanto stated, "We will follow up on what the management always promised - that they would obey the law of Indonesia."
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