Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Journalism can be a dangerous profession, but most local journalists are working without any insurance, along with pilots and other aircraft crew.
Data from the Indonesian Journalists Association say thousands of media workers in the city are poorly paid and have no access to social security programs. Only a few print and electronic media outlets have registered their staffs with the state-owned insurance company PT Jamsotek.
"Certain media registered only part of their staff and reporters with Jamsostek while certain other media reported only on a part of their staff's gross monthly salaries. This wrongdoing is actually criminal and creates job insecurity among mobile journalists," Jamsostek's Jakarta office chief Aufa Azis Chan told The Jakarta Post here over the weekend.
Almost all mass media have published stories about private companies ignoring social security programs but have also failed themselves, he added.
Pilots and cabin attendants employed by private airlines have also been kept away from social security programs.
The more than 13,600 small- and medium-scale companies operating in the city in the manufacturing and service sectors employ around 6.5 million workers. Of these, as many as 4.6 million have no job security. Their incomes are low and their employers terminated their participation in social security programs after the Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s.
Workers who are dismissed for efficiency reasons or suffer accidents on the job face an uncertain future.
"The workers are paid in accordance with the gubernatorial decree on the monthly minimum wage in the city, they do not obtain any financial benefits from the social security problems and many dismissed workers did not receive severance pay in accordance with the labor law because of their employers' financial difficulties," said Munzi Tambusai, the director general for industrial relations and social security affairs at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry.
The government has used a persuasive approach to enforce the social security law among companies
Jamsostek and the manpower and transmigration office in the city have traded accusations of taking bribes from employers while enforcing the law.
Jamsostek has accused labor inspectors of taking bribes from employers to ignore violations, while the latter has reported fictitious claims to Jamsostek involving its own field staff.
Jamsostek has no authority to enforce the law and its staff have no investigative authority to sue companies breaching it.
Employers have intentionally registered some of their workers or of their wages to reduce their enrollment to the minimum because up to eleven percent of the insurance premium is paid by the employers while workers pay two percent.
A 1999 government regulation required all workers, including those on contracts, to be registered with Jamsostek. Under the regulation, insurance premiums are based on gross monthly wages, not basic salaries.
Jamsostek has collected Rp 2.1 trillion from the 1.8 million workers and 18,500 companies that participate in its social security programs. The money forms premiums for health care, workplace accident compensation, death benefits and pension programs. It has paid out a total of RP 619 billion in compensation for almost 297,000 cases.
Due to the decreasing number of participants in the formal sector, Jamsostek, in cooperation with the city administration, now covers workers in the informal sector, including those working on development projects.
Tens of thousands of construction workers, bus drivers and conductors, ojek and becak drivers, food traders, fishermen and home industries operators have been registered with Jamsostek under special programs.
Aufa said Jamsostek would also construct a large number of cheap flats and affordable houses over the next five years to help improve the social welfare of low-income workers in the city.