Jakarta – The Bekasi payment committee decided on a monthly minimum wage of Rp 3.3 million (US$242.50) at a meeting on Thursday night. The figure is higher than Jakarta's minimum wage of Rp 3.1 million.

Head of Bekasi Manpower Agency's industrial division Sudirman said that next year's minimum wage would be 11.5 percent higher than this year's Rp 2.9 million. It was decided based on Gubernatorial Regulation No. 78/2015 on annual minimum-wage increases.

"The majority of meeting attendees agreed with the Rp 3.3 million figure," Sudirman said in Bekasi on Friday as reported by tempo.co, adding that only one workers' representative rejected it. He said that the meeting was attended by 24 representatives of workers, employers and the Bekasi administration.

Sudirman said that the result of the meeting would be conveyed to Bekasi Mayor Rahmat Effendi, who would in turn recommend the minimum wage figure to West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan who would then, in all likelihood, issue a gubernatorial decree to make the figure official.

Head of Bekasi's branch of the All-Indonesia Workers Association (SPSI) R Abdullah accepted the decision, after considering the economic slowdown being felt by employers at present.

Purnomo Narmiadi, head of Bekasi's branch of the Indonesia Employers' Association (Apindo) that represents many of Bekasi's 1,018 employers, said that representatives of employers accepted the decision, but if there were businesspeople who could not afford to pay the new minimum wage, they would appeal to the governor for a delayed implementation of the decision. (bbn)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/11/20/bekasi-minimum-wage-rp-33m-5-more-jakarta-s.html