Dini Mawuntyas, Surabaya – The head of the board of directors of the Tanjung Perak branch of the Land Transport Organisation in the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya, Kodi Lomahayu, says that 6,000 transport workers at the port are threatened with dismissal.

“If the export-import transport service situation at the Tanjung Perak port [continues] to be flat for the next six months, dismissals cannot be avoided”, he said on Tuesday January 6.

Lomahayu said that the impact of the global financial crisis has resulted a drastic decline in commodity exports, including among others textiles, food and beverages, passing through the Tanjung Perak port. “The decline in export activity in December 2008 was a much as 50 percent compared with the previous year”, he said.

As a consequence of the drop in exports, he said, the leasing of transport services at Tanjung Perak has also declined drastically. “Currently, out of a fleet of 600 only half are in operation”, he said.

In addition to this, the fleet is currently being operated in rotation. “Usually the entire fleet is used, now however we are operating them on a rotational basis”, he said.

Lomahayu said that up until now employers are still covering food allowances for transport workers at Tanjung Perak, even though they are not working. “And if this continues, then dismissals will [have] to be carried out”, he said.

[Translated by James Balowski.]