Stories Of BUMN Bank Employees Who Are Forced To Meet At The Office Despite Social Distancing Appeals

JAKARTA - The outbreak of the corona virus or COVID-19, which has entered Indonesia, has prompted the government to make several appeals on how to prevent the virus from becoming more widespread. One of the suggestions is about social distancing, which means limiting contact with other people, by setting a distance of about 1 or 2 meters.

The President, Ministries / Institutions, and several state-owned and private companies also responded to this appeal. However, not all employees of the company are able to undergo social distancing, considering that there are some jobs that must be done in the office.

In fact, it still depends on the policies of the leaders in each division of the company. As experienced by Ina (not her real name), who is a marketing company for a state-owned bank that has a branch in the Tanah Abang area.

He admitted that he had to come to his office for a meeting in the marketing department to discuss targets and other company plans. He also had to attend a meeting with dozens of other employees in a room that was not sufficient to accommodate employees on Friday, March 20 this morning.

In fact, according to him, the meeting only listened to presentations from the leadership in the form of slides which could be shared online and simply discussed in the Whatsapp group.

Ina admitted that her boss had forced her to work for a meeting. Many employees are actually reluctant to enter, but are threatened by their superiors. "When my friends and I didn't want to come in, he (the boss) said, 'Do you want to work or not?'," Said Ina to VOI, Friday, March 20.

As a result, the meeting was attended by all parts of the marketing department until it exploded. Even though all employees wear masks, the danger of spreading COVID-19 lurks because there is no distance between employees.

"You can actually use a representative, so you don't get too many gatherings. But the boss wants to gather, and is asked one by one to make it clear," said the woman who claimed to have worked at the bank for a long time.

Indeed, the company where he works applies WFH, but specifically for the operational section, while the marketing and back office depends on the policies of each leader.

When contacted by VOI, the Public Relations staff of the state-owned bank said that his party could not comment on the incident. What is clear, he said, is that the company's management has provided written recommendations regarding the application of social distancing and work from home.

In a written statement received by VOI, it was stated that the state-owned bank had realized the direction of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, to immediately imitate all activities in public spaces through the work from home (WFH) program to reduce the level of spread of COVID-19 or Sars Cov 2.

The company states that it has issued regulations regarding the implementation of WFH for workers at the Bank's Head Office, Regional Offices, Regional Internal Audit, and company campuses.

The BUMN Bank Corporate Secretary also said that his party was implementing the social distancing method with WFH management procedures for workers who had been appointed by the company in several areas affected by COVID -19, such as Jabodetabek, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Denpasar, Semarang and Manado.

"This is our real step in providing safety and health guarantees for all workers," said the Corporate Secretary of the state-owned bank in a written statement.

The BUMN bank also emphasized that workers who received WFH instructions to carry out the program completely by doing self-isolation for 14 days, from 17 to 31 March 2020.

"We ask workers who carry out WFH to stay and carry out their duties in their respective homes by avoiding public spots and not traveling out of town," he said.

Contacted separately, the Jakarta Manpower, Transmigration and Energy Agency noted that currently there are 220 companies in Jakarta that have implemented a work from home system or WFH. This is stated in the Circular of the Head of the DKI Jakarta Manpower, Transmigration and Energy Agency Number 14 / SE / 2020 concerning Appeals to Work at Home (WFH).

"So there are 220 companies with a workforce of 21,589 people who have reported," said Head of the Jakarta Manpower, Transmigration and Energy Agency Andri Yansyah, via text message.

In a circular letter of appeal to work from the home of the Jakarta Provincial Government of Manpower and Transmigration and Energy, they are grouped into three categories, namely companies can temporarily stop all their business activities, companies can temporarily reduce some of their business activities (some employees, time and operational facilities), and companies that are unable to stop their business activities, given their direct interests related to health services, the need for staple goods, and fuel.