We took legal advice and employed lawyers to fight our case.
First we went through the channels of the Department of Manpower who found in our favour. Next we went to the Labour Court who, quite unexpectedly ~ except that this is Indonesia and little folk are rarely, it seems, dealt with fairly ~ found in favour of Penabur.
We therefore appealed to the Supreme Court, largely on the grounds that if we lost then each and every expat with a work permit would find themselves at risk in that there would be less legal protection than that afforded to Indonesia's migrant workers abroad.
We have been waiting for the Supreme Court's decision for over a year and today, finally, we learnt that they had found in our favour.
There are fine details to be sorted out so I'm not gloating.
However, I'm sure that all those teachers, parents and former students who have expressed support will be as pleased as we are. Thank you all.
Finally, in another case, Pak Chrismaryadi, School Board Member in charge of Penabur International Schools, wrote as follows: We are fully prepared and willing to stand up and fight for our rights in court. We had done this a few times before and we had 100% strike rate (won all the cases!)Well, now Penabur hasn't. Perhaps it's time that they reconsidered their treatment of employees and accept that this has been remiss in the past.
