Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Since he was laid off several months ago, Maryadi, 48, has started to behave strangely, at least as far as his wife, children and neighbors are concerned.
Once an out-going father of teenagers, Maryadi has withdrawn from social activities in the neighborhood and confines himself to his rented house and "new job". "I am ashamed to tell my story (to you), but since they (his neighbors) don't read (The) Jakarta Post, I will," Maryadi said Friday.
Maryadi, who has been working as a low-paid security guard in his neighborhood in Pondok Cabe, South Jakarta, said that he was laid off by PT Fly Tech Service, a cleaning service company believed to be owned by a senior staff of state-owned airline company PT Pelita Air Service (PAS), last October.
Fly Tech is in charge of cleaning PAS' aircraft and helicopters at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Cengkareng, Tangerang, Halim Perdanakusumah Airport and Pondok Cabe Airport, southern Jakarta.
Up until 1997, Maryadi was working for Pelita Air Service in the equipment safety division. Due to the economic crisis, however, he was asked to take an early pension and given severance pay totaling around Rp 30 million.
Almost immediately after he was laid off by PAS, Maryadi was hired as a contract worker by PT Fly Tech. As a contract worker, Maryadi received a much lower salary than he had earned previously with no health insurance or pension fund.
His biggest nightmare came last October when Fly Tech dismissed him without any severance pay or pension fund. And to add insult to injury, his eldest daughter Maisaroh was laid off by Sarinah Department Store in Central Jakarta a few months later.
In order to help her family's income, Maisaroh, 21, decided to work for a Japanese bar and karaoke lounge in the Blok M business district.
Maryadi said he didn't know what his daughter was doing at the bar, "but her monthly salary was enough to help meet the family's daily needs." Maisaroh dropped out of a private university in West Jakarta only six months after her father was laid off by PAS in 1997.
"I cannot prevent her from taking the night job because I myself cannot earn enough money even to buy basic commodities such as rice, fish or kerosene," said Maryadi.
The family now rents their former house which they sold to a neighbor in the housing complex last June. They decided to sell the house in order to send Mariadi's youngest child Malik to a private technological school in Pamulang, Tangerang.
Maryadi said he had to accept his current job with a monthly take-home pay of Rp 350,000 (US$38) because he had no other alternative, besides the fact that he was too old to apply for a job in a private company.
"The small amount of money is not enough to support my family, to pay my son's school fees and to buy cheap cigarettes," he said.
Maryadi also condemned PAS for outsourcing the equipment safety work to Fly Tech. He said he was one of 87 workers victimized in the transfer of their department to a private company. Besides the small amount of severance pay after 19 years work, he said, he and other dismissed workers were hired by the private company for the same job but with lower pay.
"I was paid only Rp 900,000 monthly and last October, we were dismissed without any severance pay," he said, adding that his salary before he left PAS was Rp 1.7 million a month.
During his employment with Fly Tech, he was not registered with the social security programs as required under the current labor law.
Fly Tech's project manager, Yonas A.F., confirmed the management's decision not to extend Maryadi's labor contract last October following the closure of PAS' regular flight unit at the Soekarno-Hatta Airport.
"The decision is part of the labor contract, which is automatically void when the business contract between the company and PAS expires," he said. He added that the labor contracts between Fly Tech and Maryadi and six other workers stationed in Cengkareng airport were not extended after PAS closed down its regular flight unit last year.
Asked why Fly Tech extended the labor contract eight times consecutively with the seven workers, Yonas said this was in line with the agreement between management and workers.
The current labor law allows employers to extend a labor contract only twice consecutively. After that the worker has to be employed permanently, or dismissed without severance pay.