Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – About 2,000 workers and their employers staged rallies at a number of government institutions in Medan, North Sumatra, Wednesday, demanding the normalization of electricity and gas supplies to companies in the province.
Power outages and gas shortages had forced the firms to temporarily stop operations, thereby threatening the workers' employment.
The rallies were marked by a march from the North Sumatra Legislative Council to the offices of the state electricity company PT PLN and state gas company PT PGN and ended at the North Sumatra gubernatorial office.
At each office the protesters handed over a written set of demands, including a rejection of charges until the electricity and gas supply returned to normal.
Head of the North Sumatra office of the Indonesian Employer's Association (Apindo) Parlindungan Purba, who also organized the rallies, said Wednesday that due to the power and gas supply crises in the North Sumatra province, several companies were on the brink of bankruptcy. The impact was predictable... thousands of workers would be laid off, he said.
"Based on our records, over 3,000 workers of three bankrupt companies have been laid off. There will be many others if the companies where they work do not get adequate power and gas supplies," Parlindungan said.
He explained that out of 500 companies registered at Apindo in North Sumatra, at least 10 of them, specializing in the production of gloves, were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, Datumira Simanjuntak, a representatives of the workers, added that at least 50 other companies had been forced to reduce their production capacities due to power cuts and gas shortages.
"Thousands of workers of the ailing companies are now waiting for their imminent layoff," Datumira said.
Datumira, therefore, urged both PLN and PGN to normalize the power and gas supplies as soon as possible so as to enable the companies to operate normally again.
He said that if the demand was not met, the workers would take the case to court because as consumers they were forced to suffer losses. Officials of both PLN and PGN met by the protesters promised to follow up their demand with PGN even pledging to resume gas supplies Thursday.
Hadimulyono of PLN said that his company would try hard to normalize the power supply. He explained that partial outages still occurred at present because the firm was forced to repair a number of power generating plants.
The blackouts, which had been imposed over the last one month, were expected to end early December in line with the completion of repair work at one of PLN's plants in Belawan, North Sumatra.