
Issue No 88		16 March 2001

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News

Shangri-La Faces D-Day

Fears of violent scenes, as the Jakarta Shangri-La hotel is re-opened tomorrow, has prompted the hotel unions international to write to the Indonesian President asking him to ensure restraint by both private and state security forces.

Mr Ron Oswald, the general secretary of the IUF, has asked President Wahid to persuade the owners of the Shangri-La hotel to postpone the re-opening because of the potential for violence. " The current situation can only be made more difficult as a result of an act that could be interpreted as blatant provocation," Mr Oswald said in his letter to the President. The hotel workers who were locked out of their workplaces in December have promised to picket the Shangri-La to try and stop management, with the use of scab labour, re-opening the 32-storey 688 room luxury hotel. " In the event that you are not able to prevail upon the Shangri-La management to postpone the opening there is clearly a risk that tensions will rise dramatically and an attendant risk of violence against those who chose to exercise their legitimate right of protest," Mr Oswald wrote. " In this situation your government will necessarily be held fully accountable for any violence by private or state security forces that might be inflicted on those workers. " I therefore urge you to act as guarantor of the rights of those workers who are currently locked-out of the hotel and being denied their rightful employment." Court case next week

The plan by management to re-open the Shangri-La Jakarta Hotel is part of an intense managament campaign to defeat the union members, including the use of the Indonesian judicial system in a massive legal suit. The South Jakarta Civil Court is due to sit next week to hear the company's extraordinary $US 14 million legal claims against their workforce. " The legal action in Jakarta is being taken by one of the wealthiest men in the world, against some of the poorest workers in the world," Ma Wei-Pin, the Asia-Pacific regional secretary for the hotel unions international, the IUF, said today. The Shangri-La Jakarta hotel is part of an Asia-Pacific hotel and resort chain owned by Malaysian-born billionaire, Robert Kuok, who is listed as one of the wealthiest men in the world by Forbes magazine. The IUF, an international trade union federation with an affiliated membership of 2.5 million workers in 327 trade unions in 118 countries, has actively supported the Shangri-La hotel workers since before the company lockout started more than two months ago. Australians back Shangri-La workers Australian unions have also sought to intervene on behalf of the Indonesian hotel workers. Six contruction unions in Victoria have told the owners of the Shangri-La hotel chain that they will boycott a $1.5 billion Melbourne project, consisting of offices, apartments and a new Shangri-La hotel if the Jakarta dispute is not resolved peacefully. The construction unions have held some talks with representatives of Mr Kuok, and the ACTU has also been threatened with legal action by Mr Kuok for criticising the hotel chain over the dispute. Workers at Jakarta's 5-star Shangri-La Hotel had been seeking negotiations with hotel management since October to resolve issues of fundamental concern to the workforce, including the absence of an employee pension plan and a fair distribution of the service charge. Hotel management, however, refused to allow the participation in bargaining meetings of Halilntar Nurdin, president of the IUF-affiliated FSPM which organizes over 900 of the hotel's 1,150 employees. Solidarity Streetstall sells rice and iced teas The hotel workers, most of whom were earning roughly $80 a month, have now gone without pay for nearly three months. The hotel, which is right in the centre of Jakarta near where all the big protest rallies are held, has been picketed by about 500 staff ever since the lockout began at the end of December. The union's treasurer, Mohammad Zulrachman, who was on the picket line was beaten up by a man believed to be a bodyguard for one of the Indonesian investors in the hotel. The union members - including chefs, bellboys and technicians - are keeping themselves going by running a popular 'Solidarity Streetstall' near the picket line serving up fried rice and iced teas to earn some extra rupiahs. Strike costs $200,000 a day The company claims that since the hotel was shut down in late December they have been losing nearly $200,000 a day - and they are using this claim as the basis for the damages suit against the union and its members. The Shangri-La Jakarta hotel plans to open with 300 new staff, plus some workers who never joined the strike and a new general manager, Stefan Bollhalder. The former Shangri-La Jakarta general-manager, Peter J Carmichael, who was deeply involved when the dispute with the hotel workers' union broke out more than two months ago, has been transferred to the Shangri-La chain's China World Hotel in Beijing. The Jakarta hotel is part of an Asia-Pacific hotel and resort chain with its headquarters in Hong Kong. More than a third of the chains 37 hotels and resorts are based in Mainland China, others are spread throughout the Asia-Pacific, including Singapore, Thailand, Phillipines, Fiji, the United Arab Emirate. Show your support and send protest e-mails and faxes today to: Mr Kuok's head office in HK: [email protected] The Indonesian Minister for Manpower: fax: 62 21 525 5669

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Issue 88 contents

Interview: Labor Law
Shadow Attorney General Robert McClelland outlines his plans for workers entitlements, legal aid and a Bill of Rights

Unions: Poetic Justice
The ACTU kicked off its 2001 Living Wage campaign this week with a new shock tactic: poetry.

Technology: Big Brother�s Legacy
Organisations with restrictive staff email polices risk locking themselves in the Industrial Age by treating their staff as units to be monitored.

Corporate: Scumbags Exposed
On the eve of the inaugural Corporate Scumbags Tour, we look at the worst of the worst from the Top End of Town.

International: Playing Away
Pat Ranald looks at a proposal to hold Australian companies to basic standards when they invest in developing countries.

Environment: Nuclear Titanics
The Maritime Union has joined Greenpeace in a campaign to stop our seas becoming a nuclear highway.

History: Out of the Bog
Neale Towart looks at the life of big Jim Larkin, one of the heroes of an Irish trade union movement that continues to thrive.

Politics: Westie�s Macquarie Street Alert
The Workers MLC, Ian West, provides the first in a series of regular rundowns on the upcoming Parliamentary session

Review: The Next American Century?
How will the United States maintain its global power in an era when the very notion of the nation-state is under challenge?

Satire: Dollar Crashes Through Psychological 0.00c Barrier
The bedevilled Australian dollar dropped below the crucial 0.00c barrier losing its battle to avoid the humiliation of being worth less than the commemorative Bradman coins distributed by the Sunday Telegraph last weekend.

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» Casino Workers Seek Full Metal Jacket

» Leichhardt Council Endangers the Public

» Casual Teachers Break Through

» Tide Turns on Award-Stripping

» Workers Demand Seat on Racing Board

» Shangri-La Faces D-Day

» Fiji PM Appointment Illegal

» Activists Notebook