Hundreds of workers go on strike at Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok port

The union representing workers at the Jakarta International Container Terminal called the strike on Aug. 3 and say the labor action could last until Aug. 10.    Over 650 workers at the Port of Tanjung Priok, the busiest and most technologically advanced seaport in Indonesia, have gone on strike, leading to major disruptions at the port’s biggest container handling location, the Jakarta International Container Terminal (JICT).
   The union representing workers at the JICT called the strike around 3 a.m. on Aug. 3 and say the labor action could last until Aug. 10, essentially shutting down the terminal that typically handles 70 percent of the port’s import and export traffic for a full week.
   The terminal, which handles over half of the country’s transshipment cargo traffic and moves roughly 6.5 million TEUs annually, is operated by state owned Indonesia Port Corporations and Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports.
   The union and its members say they’re on strike to show their unhappiness regarding an unfulfilled promise by management to make bonus payments to workers. Workers received only a portion of the amount they’d been promised, according to union officials.
   “We are on strike because the renewal of our contracts in 2015 had violated existing regulations and caused our bonuses to be cut by 42 percent,” JICT workers union secretary general Mokhammad Firmansyah explained in a prepared statement.
   The union also said that its members should not be receiving a cut in bonus pay when the terminal itself saw a 4.6 percent increase in revenue last year and executive leadership for the terminal operator saw their bonuses increase by 18 percent.
   The port as a whole contains 20 terminals, and during the strike traffic is being directed to other locations within the port for processing. So far, at least 20 ships that were scheduled to be handled at JICT have been redirected to other terminals due to the strike, Indonesia’s transport ministry said in a statement.
   The Jakarta government has said that it plans to mediate the dispute between the union and JICT management in the coming days, according to Jakarta Manpower Agency official Dwi Untoro.