Workers Demand Rp. 11 Million Salary Increase, AICE: We Cannot Meet It

Gedung Aice Karawang, West Java (Photo: Mery Handayani / VOI)

JAKARTA - PT Alpen Food Industry (AFI), which produces Aice's ice cream, spoke up about the demonstration of its employees who are members of the Indonesian Earth Workers Movement Union (SGBBI). The demonstration began because workers asked for a salary increase that could not be fulfilled because the figure was too large.

Where based on the formula used by SGBBI, the wage requested is IDR 11,623,616, or 15 percent of 2018 sales. This increase is for 2020 salaries. PT AFI offers another formula to SGBBI.

Then, the SGBBI sent a strike notification and insisted on a wage increase based on their calculations. Meanwhile, PT AFI offers a proposal for a 2020 salary increase of IDR 4,543,961. Apart from salary, there are other benefits that are quite competitive and exceed the normative requirements.

PT AFI's Legal Corporate, Simon Audry Halomoan Siagian stated, the initial issues discussed in the bipartite negotiations were the discussion of the structure and scale of wages and the increase in wages in 2020. He ensured that PT AFI had followed the existing regulations.

"They are concerned about the 2019 wage increase, why? Because they think the 2019 wage increase is unilateral. So they demand a 2020 wage increase. Let's discuss the dispute in a bipartite forum. It's okay because for them we are wrong, let's discuss it," he said, when we met him in Karawang, Saturday, July 5.

Simon said the salary problem was due to the city's minimum wage (UMK) increasing every year. Employees who have worked for more than one year feel that their salary is equivalent to that of a new employee.

"They questioned how come there was no increase in wages (2020). Because the UMK continues to increase. My wage is the UMK for several years a new employee has paid the same salary. Even though I've worked 1 year, he's only been 1 month. Even though we have a difference in salary, we set it. that, "he explained.

Furthermore, Simon said, at the bipatrit forum this dispute was discussed and a wage increase figure of Rp. 11 million emerged which was calculated based on the SGBBI formula which came from 15 percent of Aice 2018 sales.

"They asked for Rp. 11 million, that's just the principal, not allowances. That is ridiculous, I find it very difficult to fulfill it. Our employees also have S1, if the high school salary is Rp. 11 million, how much they are paid," he said.

SGBBI continued to carry out a three-day strike strike on December 20, 21 and 23 2019. On December 21, 2019, Disnaker again invited PT AFI and SGBBI to mediate on December 23, 2019.

But on that date, only PT AFI came. SGBBI was not willing to attend the invitation to mediate. In fact, said Simon, more than hundreds of workers were present filling the hall in front of the mediation room at the Disnaker office.

"There were hundreds of them, only three of us. But no one entered the mediation room. Based on this fact, we really wondered what made the SGBBI administrators unwilling and or not ready to attend the mediation invitation," he explained.

Finally the two parties returned to mediation and on January 7, 2020 the mediator issued a recommendation. His party accepted the recommendation, but the labor union refused the recommendation and filed a lawsuit through the Industrial Relations Court (PHI) and on February 21, 2020, again carried out a strike action which resulted in layoffs.

Meanwhile, Head of Human Resources Aice Group Antonius Hermawan Susilo said, with the proportion of high school graduates of 90 percent, his party provides the lowest basic salary of IDR 4.5 million plus employee benefits. Within a month, he mentioned that the salary plus allowances for employees with a work period of 1 month ranges from IDR 5.5 million to IDR 6 million, with the average percentage increase in salary this year is 11 percent.

Antoni said that because of this, his party considered that the demand for an increase in basic salary to reach Rp11 million was absurd. Moreover, the strike also disrupted operations.

Currently, there are still 1,200 employees working, while 469 employees who have gone on strike have already been dismissed with the qualifications of Illegal Strike (MKTS).

"Some of them have been replaced, some have been held. Because for core or important positions, we immediately replaced them with new employees. Previously nearly 500 employees were on strike, so currently we have only 1,200 employees left," he said.