Telkomsel Employees to Strike for 30 Days Starting Thursday

Thousands of Telkomsel employees will begin their union sanctioned month-long strike on Thursday following a court decision that gave them victory over Telkomsel management. The industrial action centers around worker's compensation agreement with the company's management.

As reported by the Kontan daily newspaper this morning, at least three thousand out of four thousand permanent employees of Telkomsel across the country will elect to strike for a period of 30 days according to union lawyer Indra Yana. Should there be any disruption to the service, the company will not be able to deploy any team to take care of the issue. Neither will the company be able to perform any regular maintenance work during the strike period.

Back in July of this year, the court had given the parties three months to settle their differences but as it turns out, the discussions had reached an impasse. The union's demands include adjustment of worker's compensation according to inflationary rates, post-employment health benefits, as well as mobile phone subsidy for company employees.

Indra Yana stated that Telkomsel had yet to move to address these concerns and there did not seem to be any sign that the company was going to adhere to the agreement with the employee union.

Company president Sarwoto Atmosutarno said that the wages given to Telkomsel employees had been the highest within the industry but the company will seek to find a mutually beneficial solution. He is hoping that the strike will not affect communications services. Telkomsel is the largest mobile network provider in Indonesia with more than 100 million subscribers.