Jakarta – More than a thousand dockworkers staged a rally in North Jakarta on Friday to protest their employers' failure to pay their wages.

Some 1,300 workers employed by state-owned DKB, which provides stevedoring and shipping services at ports across Indonesia, took to the streets of Cilincing, near Jakarta's Tanjung Priok Port, on Friday morning.

They accused DKB and its subsidiary, Airin, which runs shipyards, of failing to pay salaries, overtime and pensions premiums.

Tati Hartati, the chairwoman of the DKB workers' union, claimed the company had for the past five years failed to pay workers their full wages, and that it was Rp 168 billion ($11.9 million) in arrears in payments to the workers' pension funds.

She also claimed the company had failed to pay overtime payments since July. "If the company does not heed our demands, we will hold a strike for the next three months, until March, or until the state-owned enterprises minister [Rini Soemarmo] solves this problem," Tati said.

"We will not negotiate with the board of directors or the commissioners either. We just want to negotiate with the minister or the president [Joko Widodo]," she added.

Representatives from DKB were not immediately available for comment.

Source: http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/dockworkers-threaten-lengthy-strike-unpaid-wages/