With your no doubt vast experience of Indonesia and matters Indonesian, I always felt that your court case rather like second marriages, represented the 'triumph of hope over experience'.
Perhaps in this case it would have been better to have adopted the adage of 'don't explain, don't complain - get even'.
As far as the judgement goes it might have serious implications for the average Indonesian wage slave - but then how many of them can afford to take Balinese vacations? I'm sure that your indignation is real but is it righteous (or should that be the other way round?).
Just a thought!
Anon (but presumably Antisthenes - see below)
| "May 13, 2008, 8:50 am" | #
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Good points Anon (but presumably Antisthenes), but let me say that finding time and credit in order to meet one's first grandchild has to take precedence over other matters. It was also the first time we have left Jakarta in nearly two years!
As for Indonesians affording Bali, you'd be surprised how crowded it apparently gets during the school holidays. We were told that this year June/July will be virtually sold out.
As for second marriages or, as in my case, third, let me say that this one has lasted a darn sight longer. Practice makes (near) perfect?
And, yes, the judgment does have implications for EVERY employee in this country. But should I have lain down and accepted totally illegal, even criminal, actions against me, and seemingly every other employee in their employ.
Note that an Indonesian SD (elementary) teacher brought a similar case before the court at the same time and she lost too. We expats do, however, have the precedent of a Singapore International School expat teacher winning a very similar case last year.
Penabur's intimidatory actions - they refused our final pay cheques or to process our residence papers/visas etc. unless we dropped our legal process - will probably be the subject of criminal actions. After all, I am a virtual prisoner here, albeit with the full knowledge of Immigration HQ and my embassy.
Finally, consider the implications for foreign investors here: if there are no certainties about employment practices, then there will be (further) anarchy.
Expect to hear a lot more about this.
Jakartass | Homepage | "May 15, 2008, 9:28 am" | #
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This is Indonesia; wake up! You only get what you bribe in the law courts and expats are powerless; your KITAS is for year and entitles you to be employed on a limited basis as an "advisor". You don't have any rights in this country and you are wasting your time I'm afraid.
Going to the supreme court? A bunch of expat teachers...a howler!
Anonymous | "May 15, 2008, 12:22 pm" | #
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"You don't have any rights in this country"?
That is deeply flawed cynicism, Anon. So you are saying that Indonesian housemaids in, say, Malaysia and Hong Kong, who are the subject of an ASEAN treaty, are better off in legal terms than foreign workers employed here? And that's OK?
I wonder, then, if we shouldn't get in touch with the Korean and Japanese embassies as their nationals far outnumber us.
BTW. I'll delete any further anonymous comments, although I'll accept pen names.
Jakartass | Homepage | "May 15, 2008, 12:15 pm" | #
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Whilst I agree that you have been treated shabbily by all and sundry in this my point really was that your overall stance and position when viewed from an Indonesian perspective could be accompanied by a murmur of the ironical 'kasian' for perhaps in judging your case the powers that be could have been swayed by the following:
A Here's this well educated foreigner on wages of 10 times or more than those of a local of similar ability and background demanding extra because he feels that he has been treated unfairly. He wants to be compensated with additional highly paid income for which he will not be working. Well being rich can be irksome.
We weren't actually paid for our last labours, as they stated in writing that they would.
B As a wealthy non-Indonesian he can afford at least to seek compensation for his perceived wrongs. Poor people cannot. Additionally the evidence he presents is highly critical of his Indonesian employers in inflammatory language too. His point might be a good one but there is no reason to be insulting and rude.
Wealthy? Not all expats live in enclaves and send their children to International Schools paid for by their employers. Have a browse through 'my' book and consider how remote I am (not) from Indonesian (read Jakartan) life and culture.
Nope, I can't afford to lose, and my ex-colleague in similar distress and similarly unpaid, spent c.Rp.70 million in bribes in order to process a new KITAS because, as I said, Penabur refused unless he/we dropped our legal case. This intimidation is, of course, subject to Indonesia's Criminal Code.
C The judge's cousin's mother-in-law's brother did some business with the aggrieved party (thats the school not Jakartass) and he said expat employees are always moaning about something or other - you think with their money they'd have nothing to complain about but they do.
Actually, we dropped our first set of lawyers when we discovered that the husband of one of them was a land broker in cahoots with Penabur.
D If he doesn't like the way things are done in Indonesia he should go home.
I am home. I have an Indonesian family, and have lived in the same (rented) house for over 20 years.
E He seems to think that law and justice are the same thing - well they're not.
But shouldn't they be?
The above perceptions are of course only supposition but I think there might be a grain of truth in at least some of it.
My point I guess is overall why did you not just shrug and walk away? (or fire bomb the school!) as we all must do sometimes, I'm sure your employers only got nasty when you started 'kicking off'.
They got nasty before our treatment having intimidating native speaker teachers for the previous two and a bit years: in employing them on business and tourist visas, in forcing prospective employees to negotiate separately for salaries and in refusing to allow time to consider the job offers.
"If you don't want it, there are plenty of others who do, and for less money."
I know that the above is provocative and most of it is 'just suppose' but this case could be another 'Jarndyce vs Jarndyce' (who? what?) and do you really want your life to be dominated by this thing.
Sure it dominates. Funding a family whilst in a state of uncertainty isn't easy and it has affected my health - my hair wasn't white before. However, as Penabur didn't provide any insurance for their expat employees for the first two years, not even through Jamsostek, the state insurance company, as they were legally bound to do, the stress might well have got to me eventually.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're right but you're wrong.
Nope, I'm right and Penabur is wrong, terribly wrong.
Anon (but presumably Antisthenes - see below)
| "May 15, 2008, 12:25 pm" | #
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My stance is really quite simple. In this so-called age of reformasi, as Indonesians begin to come to terms, after 40 years of cowed obeyance, with the notion of communal respect and individual responsibility, it is the rule of law, particularly internationally respected conventions to which Indonesia have become signatories, which should be paramount.
My arguments are certainly with my/our erstwhile employers, but I have, as yet, not written anything which can be construed as inflammatory. Anything submitted by our legal team, and everything I write, has documentation to back up our case - including my comments above about visas and intimidation. Oh, and a death threat.
That I have not been sued for defamation is possibly an indication or admission by the employers that they understand this and have, therefore, knowingly flouted both the civil and criminal codes.
As for demanding 'extra', we are claiming nothing more than our legal entitlements according to Act No.13, 2003, concerning Manpower. (I can give full verse and chapter, i.e. Articles, and probably will - later.)
BTW. I am home! And the head of my legal team is a neighbour.
I may have done better by going to the Human Rights Commission or to LBH (the Legal Aid Institute), but having the respect of the community I've lived in for 20+ years has to count for something.
As for the rights of all to be treated equally before the law. This is not just a personal matter, stressful though it is.
Jakartass | Homepage | "May 15, 2008, 1:21 pm" | #
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As I said before I feel that you're right, but wrong to pursue matters; injustice is all around us but living in a state of indignation, albeit righteous is surely not a healthy way of carrying on.
I agree that the insouciance of the general population here to serious breaches of human rights is a concern and that beating the drum for contractually sodomised expat teachers is a worthy cause to follow.
However is life long enough?
As for your comments regarding your horror for the flouting of the law and that something must be done and justice will out, I'm sure that yours is just one of many arbitrary, unfair and wrong decisions made by a legal system that, as I'm sure your neighbour will agree, is seriously flawed and essentially runs on graft and favour.
Read your previous posts regarding Tommy S and Munir and many more. I can only say once again with your long experience of the way things are that you optimistically expected that this time it would be different.
As for the threat to foreign investment that this ruling seems to pose, I can only say that many of the foreign companies presently extracting enormous wealth from this poor country may well applaud heartily labor laws that allow them to brook no opposition, and it must be faced that your test case might well help them along.
Also should we not allow the Indonesians to fight their own battles against injustice?
Till the revolution my friend and this time not anon.
Antisthenes | "May 15, 2008, 2:10 pm" | #
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For evil to exist, good men do nothing.
As you have noted, through Jakartass I have been championing the rights of underdogs. Now I've become one, are you suggesting that I should roll over and have my tummy tickled?
No fucking chance, mate!
I'm not going to google the source of the quote above, but to suggest that I should do nothing is somewhat naive, isn't it? Surely it's the personal which provides the focus and the essential fires in the belly for the fight ahead.
Jakartass | Homepage | "May 15, 2008, 2:30 pm" | #
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2 comments:
Perhaps you should have googled ‘Jarndyce vs Jarndyce’ Jakartass if you were interested in what I referred to by the allusion given. Essentially the said case forms the centerpiece for Dickens’ (no need for a google here I hope) magnum opus Bleak House. In which his view that litigation can and does ruin lives is fully realized. Dickens worked as a court reporter (before becoming the greatest novelist in the English language) and saw the whole ghastly mess of civil legislation for what it was and probably still is.. an endless lottery of hope, disappointment, and life sapping waste and tedium, which is essentially kept in motion by those who have most to materially gain from it. The legal profession.
Apropos of which the quotation ‘don’t complain don’t explain, get even’ used in an earlier post comes from a lawyer - Bobby Kennedy. Having yourself received death threats were you not ever tempted to drop a grand and have your opponents or perhaps the judge ‘seriously threatened’ or more by the boys? As that seems to be the way to do things here – and yes everything can be arranged for a price… see the aforementioned Tommy S for the finer details.
But seriously, 500 Dollars would probably do.
Kay joking aside – really this time.. Suharto junior is a misunderstood and respectable businessman who just happens to have been unluckily and wrongly convicted (thats them damn courts again for ya ) of conspiracy to the actual murder of a judge for which he served a grand total of approximately 40 months of a life sentence, give or take, but who’s quibbling? Life is cheap huh!
And who was that other piece of scum who shot that waiter dead in cold blood in front of witnesses at the Hilton because his credit card was rejected? I believe he got five years for aggravated assault. ‘Goodfellers’ aint the half of it.
However wave a separatist flag in front of the president and you get 13 years, judicial decisions like these are not fickel, judges are being told what to do. My point here is whilst your fervour is admirable and I truly wish you success, do you really want to dirty your hands and damage your health further by association with this ………….. ………… ……….. (insert appropriate adjectives) of a so called legal system?
I’m done
Antithenes
Ah, but the death threat wasn't against me, but against the very first teacher shafted by the programme boss back in November 2004.
We have notarised statements from a number of former colleagues outlining the intimidatory nature of their employees. Then there are the documents which demonstrate teachers employed on business or tourist visas, the lack of income tax certificates and, coming soon, an itemised list of their breaches of the Employment Act.
And, in case they should think of further intimidation, then it's only fair to say that copies of the relevant documents are widely distributed.
Our assumption must be that the Supreme Court will eventually rule in our favour. Failure to do so will inevitably have major consequences.
Anyways, I do understand what you are trying to say, but our lawyers don't get paid until Penabur pays us, so our legal team have to continue.
And thanks for your considered support.
BTW. My life does carry on. I did think of giving Penabur an acknowledgement in Culture Shock-Jakarta because without the decrease in my workload, I wouldn't have had the time to put the book together.
;-)
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