Tempo
Interactive - January 6, 2009
Dini
Mawuntyas, Surabaya – The head of the board of directors of the Tanjung Perak
branch of the Land Transport Organisation in the East Java provincial capital
of Surabaya, Kodi Lomahayu, says that 6,000 transport workers at the port are
threatened with dismissal.
“If the
export-import transport service situation at the Tanjung Perak port [continues]
to be flat for the next six months, dismissals cannot be avoided”, he said on
Tuesday January 6.
Lomahayu
said that the impact of the global financial crisis has resulted a drastic
decline in commodity exports, including among others textiles, food and
beverages, passing through the Tanjung Perak port. “The decline in export
activity in December 2008 was a much as 50 percent compared with the previous
year”, he said.
As a
consequence of the drop in exports, he said, the leasing of transport services
at Tanjung Perak has also declined drastically. “Currently, out of a fleet of
600 only half are in operation”, he said.
In addition
to this, the fleet is currently being operated in rotation. “Usually the entire
fleet is used, now however we are operating them on a rotational basis”, he
said.
Lomahayu
said that up until now employers are still covering food allowances for transport
workers at Tanjung Perak, even though they are not working. “And if this
continues, then dismissals will [have] to be carried out”, he said.
[Translated
by James Balowski.]
