Wage Subsidy Assistance Discontinued, Workers Will Send 'Love Letters' to Jokowi

JAKARTA - The government has stopped the distribution of direct wage subsidies (BLT), aka BSU, to workers with salaries below IDR 5 million this year. The reason is that the salary subsidy BLT is not budgeted for in the 2021 APBN. This decision has drawn various responses, one of which is from workers who think this program should be continued.

President of the Confederation of Indonesian Workers Unions (KSPI) Said Iqbal assessed that the wage subsidy program should be continued. Because this program really helps maintain the purchasing power of workers.

With the assistance or wage subsidies, said Iqbal, it will be a buffer or buffer for workers and their families to survive. Especially in the midst of a pandemic that hasn't ended.

"KSPI will immediately send a letter to President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to continue the program", he said, in a written statement received by VOI, Tuesday, February 2.

Apart from being continued, Iqbal also hopes that the participation of this program will be expanded, including for workers who are not registered with the BPJS Ketenagakerjaan. So that more and more workers will receive the wage subsidy.

"In the future, KSPI predicts that an explosion of layoffs of millions of workers will occur in all industrial sectors including the steel and cement industries", he said.

Previously, the Minister of Manpower Ida Fauziyah said that the salary subsidy BLT was discontinued because it had not been budgeted for in the 2021 State Budget.

Information about the salary subsidy BLT was conveyed by Ida to the media after witnessing the signing of the MoU between the Medan Center for Work Training Development (BBPLK) of the Directorate General of Binalattas and partners, associations/industries at BBPLK Medan, Saturday, January 30.

"We are still waiting, while indeed the 2021 State Budget has not or has not been allocated. Later, we will see how the next economic condition will be, but it is not allocated in the 2021 State Budget", Ida said in a recording distributed by the Ministry of Manpower's Public Relations Bureau, quoted on Tuesday, February 2.

Furthermore, Ida said that some assistance programs for workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic will continue this year. Although she did not specify the program in detail, she said the program would continue until normal economic conditions returned.