[Kabar-indonesia] 4 Jakarta Bus Strike Reports: Drivers Win Back Pay; To Return Today
JoyoNews at aol.com
JoyoNews at aol.com
Wed Aug 2 02:18:58 MDT 2006
4 reports:
- Govt to pay bus drivers' salaries by
mid August
- Reality bites for spouses, children of
PPD employees
- City needs to run buses, expert says
- PPD tossed about in history
The Jakarta Post
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Govt to pay bus drivers' salaries by mid August
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
After two days of bad traffic jams in several areas and hundreds of
stranded passengers, bus drivers succeeded Tuesday in winning eight
months' worth of back salary from the government.
The drivers, from state-owned Perusahaan Pengangkutan Djakarta (PPD),
also agreed to resume operations Wednesday.
After receiving representatives of the protesters, State Minister for
State Enterprises Sugiharto and Transportation Minister Hatta Rajasa
said the drivers would be paid by August 16 at the latest.
"The payments will be made with funds drawn from other state
companies," Sugiharto said, although he did not say which companies
in particular would be providing the money.
The government has said it also plans to revamp PPD's management using
a "holistic approach" and will make further decisions on the company's
future in September.
Meanwhile, the secretary of the Indonesian Transportation Federation
of the Prosperous Labor Union, Robinson Hasibuan, said bus drivers
would accept the decision of the government, whether it decided to
dissolve or privatize PPD.
"As long as the government pays our salaries first," he added.
The drivers' demonstrations Monday and Tuesday caused severe traffic
jams along Jl. Sudirman and Jl. M.H. Thamrin, as about 80 buses drove
in a convoy to the Presidential Palace. Corridor I of the TransJakarta
Busway, the Blok M-Kota route, was closed due to the protest.
Some 2,000 PPD bus drivers and co-drivers had reportedly not been paid
in eight months because of the company's financial problems.
PPD finance director Hendarko has previously told The Jakarta Post
that the company suffers monthly losses of about Rp 3.9 billion, while
it needs Rp 4.8 billion a month to pay its drivers. The company plans
to fire 600 of its 4,300 employees this year to save on operating
costs. PPD owns 14 depots and 300 buses.
Separately, Jakarta governor Sutiyoso said the Jakarta administration
was willing to take over PPD as a city-owned company as long as the
"restructuring" of the company's management had already been settled.
The city also plans to buy four PPD depots, worth about Rp 420
billion, to be used as TransJakarta busses depots.
"We have allocated Rp 41 billion in the city's additional spending
budget, currently being deliberated by the city council, to buy one
depot this year. We will allocate more funds in next year's budget to
buy three more depots," he said.
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The Jakarta Post
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Reality bites for spouses, children of PPD employees
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Marlise Hutagalung, an employee of state-owned transportation company
PPD, cried as she asked to meet the transportation minister and the
state minister for state enterprises.
"I'm hungry," she said Tuesday, "My salary has not been paid for nine
months ... my children don't go to school anymore."
She represented the anger of thousands of PPD staff and their
families, who have been living in Jakarta with no money.
The bus drivers staged a strike Monday and Tuesday, many accompanied
by wives, husbands and children.
The protests caused severe traffic jams in Jakarta's main streets and
halted the operation of the Blok M-Kota route of the TransJakarta
busway system, as the protesters used the lane for their bus convoy.
Their cries were answered by the State Minister for State Enterprises
Sugiharto and Transportation Minister Hatta Rajasa, who promised to
pay eight months' back pay by August 16.
However, for many the damage has already been done. The company's Rp
3.9 billion in losses per month mean some 2,000 PPD drivers are
reported to have not been paid for nine months.
A mother lost her child to a preventable illness. Children dropped out
of school. Households broke up. Families have become entangled in
debt. And they are just a few of the problems the employees have had
to deal with.
A wife of a PPD bus driver and mother of two children, Nur, who
followed the protest, said Tuesday she did not mind the heat as long
as she could send a message to the higher authorities about her
family's misery.
She said that her child had bronchitis and needed continuous medical
treatment.
"We have stopped her treatment because we don't have any money," she said.
Medical treatment has been a serious problem for the families of PPD
bus drivers, as the company has been late in paying the state-owned
insurance company Jamsostek, causing hospitals to refuse PPD bus
drivers' insurance cards.
Ermiyati, wife of bus driver Parisman, said her child had died because
they had not been able to afford the hospital.
Children's education has also been a problem. Nur said that her first
child could not enter elementary school, because she did not have the
money to buy the entrance application form.
"I didn't have Rp 100,000 to get the form," she said.
Ina, 42, a mother of five, said that her household could not bear the
financial constraints, resulting her child dropping out of junior high
school. "My youngest child, who is eight, has not
entered elementary school yet, because we just don't have the money," she
said.
PPD bus driver Ikyani, who brought his fourth grader son, said he had
not been able to pay his three children's school fees for seven
months.
He said that he already borrowed Rp 5 million to make ends meet.
Nur and Ina said that the general good stores in their neighborhoods
had stopped trusting them.
"At first stores allowed us to owe them money for goods. Now they do
not trust us to pay our debts," Ina said.
Mudasinah, 42, said that her family owed millions of rupiah.
"I could not even go home to Bantul (Central Java) to visit my
parents. Their house collapsed in the May earthquake."
Ina said many marriages had been ruined as household economies had
fallen apart. "Some wives left their husbands after they said they
could not feed the family," she said.
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The Jakarta Post
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
City needs to run buses, expert says
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Public transportation affairs need to be taken care of by the city
administration and not the central government, a transportation
analyst says.
"The city should play a key role by setting the standards for public
bus management and making sure they are well monitored to avoid
predatory actions between operators," Indonesian Transportation
Society chairman Bambang Susantono told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Responding to the case of mismanaged public bus company Perusahaan
Pengangkutan Djakarta (PPD), Bambang said the business should be
overseen by Jakarta's own administration.
"Unless there is a (national) strategic value to it. But PPD has
none," he added.
PPD is jointly supervised by the Transportation Ministry and the State
Ministry for State Enterprises.
Bambang said another issue in Jakarta's public bus management was
route restructuring.
With a total of 14 busway corridors serving as the city's future
public transportation backbone, the city transportation agency needed
to reshape overlapping routes, he said.
Overlapping public bus services contributed significantly to the
disorganized condition of the transportation system in the city, and
partly to the problems occurring in PPD, Bambang said.
According to the Central Statistics Agency, as of 2004 some 12 million
Jakartans were catered for with 4,767 large public buses serving 366
routes.
PPD was ranked first at the time, in terms of scale, with 1,815 of its
buses serving 116 routes. That number has shrunk to 300 today.
Private company Mayasari Bakti tails behind in terms of scale with
1,595 buses serving 123 routes, although its services are expanded
through subsidiary Himpurna, with 85 more buses.
On top of the two major players, there are 13 other companies
providing the same service, including the market's latest competitor,
TransJakarta.
Another five private companies operate 4,981 smaller buses catering to
123 shorter routes.
Although there were concerns that PPD's unhealthy financial
performance was due to corruption, better city-wide public bus
management could help the company survive, Bambang said.
"But, first of all, PPD needs re-sizing, as its workforce exceeds its
operating capacity," Bambang said. "Therefore, lay-offs seem to be
inevitable."
He said reforming PPD's corporate culture would also be necessary to
get the company back on its feet.
Currently, the company's buses are being operated by a total of 4,300
employees. The company plans to cut this to 3,700 this year.
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The Jakarta Post
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
PPD tossed about in history
PPD began on December 21, 1954, when the young government of Indonesia
turned Dutch transportation company Bataviasche Verkeers Maatchappij
into Perusahaan Pengangkutan Djakarta.
Control of PPD has since swung back and forth between the central
government and the city administration.
In 1961, the company was nationalized and put under the supervision of
the Ministry of Transportation. Two months later, it was handed over
to the Jakarta administration before being returned to the central
government's management in 1981.
The road started to get bumpy for the company when, in 1985, the
Transportation Minister merged seven private bus operators under PPD.
The company then had to manage a massive workforce of 16,589 people
operating 1,386 buses.
I-box: Jakarta public bus statistics
Companies No. of buses No. of routes
TOTAL LARGE BUSES 4,767 366
1. Perum PPD 1,815 116
2. Mayasari Bakti 1,595 123
3. Ikawali Pusaka J 29 1
4. Pahala Kencana 62 6
5. Bianglala 176 16
6. Steady Safe 599 59
7. Giri Indah Andalan 79 11
8. Agung Bhakti 20 3
9. Koperasi ARH 25 2
10. Koda Jaya 100 7
11. Jasa Utama 20 2
12. Koperasi Himpurna 85 7
13. Metro Mini 64 4
14. Kopaja 7 8
15. BP Trans Jakarta 91 1
TOTAL SMALL BUSES 4,981 123
1. Metro Mini 3,106 70
2. Kopaja 1,481 38
3. Koantas Bima 185 7
4. Kopami Jaya 163 3
5. Jewa Dian Mitra 46 5
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Source: Jakarta in Numbers 2004
Central Statistics Agency (BPS)
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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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