Dofa Fasila – A planned week-long strike by workers across the capital was averted after the Jakarta wage council approved a more substantial provincial minimum wage rise for next year.

Mas Muanan, a member of the council, said that following last-minute negotiations with workers' unions on Sunday night, the wage had been raised from the proposed Rp 1.497 million to Rp 1.529 million ($166 to $170). He added the new figure was scheduled to be submitted to governor Fauzi Bowo on Monday for final approval.

"We increased the wage in light of the workers' threat to carry out a massive strike," he said. "That's why the final outcome of the negotiations was that we agreed to peg the provincial minimum wage to the workers' version of the KHL," Mas added, referring to the Reasonable Living Cost Index.

On Friday the wage council announced a 16 percent rise in the wage to Rp 1.5 million – less than the Rp 1.52 million that the workers had demanded, but much more than the Rp 1.41 million that the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) was holding out for.

In response, the Indonesian Association of Workers' Unions (Aspek) threatened a sweeping strike by its 50,000 workers should its demand not be met.

Mas said another factor in the council's decision to agree to the workers' demands was the comparison of the Jakarta minimum wage to those in the surrounding satellite cities.

The minimum wage in Depok for next year has been pegged at Rp 1.453 million, in Bekasi district it is Rp 1.491 million and in Bekasi city it is Rp 1.422 million. Mas said it was only natural that the minimum wage in Jakarta be somewhat higher than in those other areas.

Deded Sukandar, the head of the city's manpower and transmigration office, said that a re-evaluation of the workers' demands showed that their estimate of reasonable living cost of Rp 1.529 million was valid.

"We re-evaluated and recalculated the data [required for the KHL] from the BPS [Central Statistics Agency]," he said. "As it turns out, the data was all messed up, and after we cleared it up, it's apparent that the reasonable monthly living cost in Jakarta next year will go up to Rp 1.529 million."

The workers' KHL is 2.9 percent higher than the wage council's previous estimate of the reasonable living cost in the city.

Deded denied that the city had caved in to the workers' demands because of the threat of a strike, saying that the wage council had the right to make revisions as it saw fit. Nevertheless, he said he hoped that with Monday's announcement of the increased minimum wage, the workers would cancel their planned industrial action.