Badriah, Jakarta – Workers claim that as a group they are suffering most because of the government’s decision to increase the price of fuel on March 1 which has flowed on to increases in the price of basic goods.

“Workers must stretch their wages [even further] for every increase in the price of basic goods from fuel increases”, said the action coordinator and chairperson the women’s division of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions (GSBI), Emelia Yanti MD, on Sunday March 13.

Earlier this afternoon, around 200 GSBI workers went to the State Palace in Jakarta where Yanti gave a speech from on top of a pickup truck in front of her colleges, most of whom were women.

“The government doesn’t side with the poor but with the capitalists. SBY [President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono] hasn’t made the interests of the people a consideration in [formulating] government policy”, she said. The government’s reasons for cutting fuel subsidies in order to pay for education and health she said, is a deception and a lie to the people.

She said that the Jakarta provincial minimum wage of 711,834 rupiah per month which was set by Jakarta governor Sutiyoso on November 12 has further increased the burden on workers. “The 2005 minimum wage is very far from being enough for a decent livelihood, even less so with fuel [price]  increases”, she said. What’s more she said, workers must pay for rent, transportation, food and clean water.

The economic burden on workers has also grown as a result of factory closures and the relocation of industries overseas such as PT Idola Bangun Idea, PT Megaria Mas Sentosa and PT Victoria. “They have yet to pay [their workers’] wages or severance pay”, she said.

In addition to this, mass dismissals as a result of ending the textile quota agreement on international markets in January also influenced workers’ lives as well as companies now preferring to employ contract workers or to outsource. “Leaving it easy to be sacked”, she said.

[Translated by James Balowski.]