Penabur - Contemptible and Criminal Christians

I can't change the past, but I have a chance to create my future. I can't go back and turn back the time. I can't change what I've done ..."

fr. Susiana Gunawan Friendster profile 

 

That is not 100% true.

 

For a start, you can do what the Supreme Court has mandated you to do (Putusan No. 576 K/PDT.SUS/2008). Your failure to do so leaves you liable to a term of imprisonment for contempt of court.

 

You may think that you can hide behind the Penabur Board of Governors, but they will hang you out to dry because you are the person who signed letters which admit to illegal acts, such as the non-payment of tax and the refusal to issue exit permits. the employment of expatriates on tourist and business visas, and much else.

 

You are also named as the 'registrant' of upi-edu.com, albeit a defunct website, and you remain as 'business manager' of UPI, although no one seems quite sure what that entails. Presumably you are responsible for the recent recruitment advertisements in the Jakarta Post. These are de facto evidence that UPI continues to contravene prevailing regulations regarding the employment of "Qualified Native English Teachers".

 

I should not have to spell out to you what those regulations are, but for those reading this email via the Bcc facility I refer you to Act No.66 of 2009 About Granting Permission for Foreign National Teachers in formal and non-formal education units in Indonesia. It's online in Indonesian here.

 

I'm not seeking vengeance but merely what is owed according to the contract I signed in good faith with Ukrida Penabur International. Article 7 refers to Terms and Conditions, including termination of employment. Article 10 states that "the laws of Indonesia govern this Contract of employment and the determination of any disputes or claims arising in relation thereto." The Supreme Court has ruled against UPI so in not settling matters with me (and Jac Poelemans) you are acting in contempt of court.

 

I am writing to you in good faith, expecting you to settle forthwith. As well as the sum stated in the Supreme Court ruling, plus the interest on that sum accrued in the two or so years since that ruling, there is the unpaid salary for work done prior to my arbitrary and unlawful dismissal, my legal entitlements under the law pending the settlement of this case (including medical), and the sorting out of my residence permit with the Department of Immigration.

 

When dealing with the latter issue, you may wish to refer them to the letter from my lawyers, SH & R, dated 23rd November 2009, ref no:158/SHR/PV/11/2009, which informed them of your liability in law for my current situation until you have settled up according to the Supreme Court ruling referred to above. Your lawyers, Petrus Selestinus, will have a copy of that letter, and I separately informed the British Consulate of the situation. They are the Cc'd recipients of this email.

 

This has gone on long enough, so, Suzi, it's up to you, lah.

 

You would do well to read and inwardly digest your Bible, particularly Ezekiel 18 and Romans 12:19. However, in case you decide to ignore this, then let me assure you that if I do not hear from you or any of the board members before August 17th - the second anniversary of the publication of the Supreme Court's decision - then some of the contents of my book, Penabur - Contemptible and Criminal Christians has already been pre-scheduled for posting online on that date. Although my blog Performing Monkeys carries my opinions about your contemptible and morally corrupt management, I have yet to post any of the documents which demonstrate beyond any doubt Penabur's contempt for Indonesia's laws.

When I do, rest assured that the link will be sent to not only include the good folk Bcc'd to this email but also to the media and the mailing lists of Penabur congregations throughout Indonesia.

Terry Collins
B.Ed. CTEFL

Fired Penabur Teacher Is Cause Celebré

It would appear that the management of the self-styled BPK Penabur International can't do much right.

Having been accused by a parent of being arogan, they're now facing yet another court case for unlawful dismissal, this time brought by Dr. Walter Tonetto who was hired to be Principal of Penabur International at the head office campus in Tanjung Duren.

He was expected to work on a tourist visa, a deportation matter, he was belatedly paid relocation expenses from Bali, he wasn't been paid anything for the work he did do, and, in spite of protestations from Penabur that he was sent various letters from management requesting a meeting, there is no proof that they were in fact sent.

He was in Bali arranging his relocation.

So they fired him.

You can read all about it on International Schools Review.

Do read the self-justifying Penabur letters citing their 'Christian background' as good enough reasons for doing what they do. It's worth noting that they claim to have a 100% success rate in legal cases.

The Indonesian judiciary has this month been rated as the most corrupt in Asia in a poll of businessmen and, according to Transparency International, Indonesians trust them almost as little as they trust the police.

So, how do you think Penabur achieves such a startling success rate? This blog is now open to all teachers, students and parents who feel they have been wronged over the years by Penabur.

Penabur's Disregard of Indonesia's Manpower Law - 1

Comments on Process of Termination of Employment JP and TC by BPK-Penabur.
(NB. All Articles quoted are taken from Act No.13, 2003, concerning Manpower)

Article 46.1
No worker of foreign citizenship is allowed to occupy positions that deal with personnel …..
- David Nesbit, the Teacher Co-ordinator who signed the letters of termination, is British.

Article 57
(1) A work agreement for a specified period of time shall be made in writing and must be written in the Indonesian language with Latin alphabets.
- Employment contracts were in English only.

(2) A work agreement for a specified period of time, if made against what is prescribed under subsection (1), shall be regarded as a work agreement for an unspecified period of time.
- NO contracts were issued to NETs by BPK-Penabur from January 2005 until June 2006.

Article 59.7
Any work agreement for a specified period of time that does not fulfill the requirements referred to
under subsections (1), (2), (4), (5) and (6) shall, by law, become a work agreement for an
unspecified period of time.
- Ergo: the initial employment agreements signed in August 2004 by Sonny Hartono, as the representative of BPK-Penabur (the First Party) and JP and TC (the Second Parties) remain valid for an unspecified period, or until the termination is agreed by both parties.

Article 151
(1)The entrepreneur, the worker and or the trade/labour union, and the government must make all efforts to prevent termination of employment from taking place.
- The termination of the employments of JP and TC were arbitrary, with no reasons given, nor were the procedures set out in August 2004 followed.

(2) If despite all efforts made termination of employment remains inevitable, then, the intention to carry out the termination of employment must be negotiated between the entrepreneur and the trade/labour union to which the affected worker belongs as member, or between the entrepreneur and the worker to be dismissed if the worker in question is not a union member.
- There was no discussion or recognized procedure, let alone ‘negotiation’. (cf. Article 161)

If the negotiation as referred to under subsection (2) fails to result in any agreement, the entrepreneur may only terminate the employment of the worker/ after receiving a decision [a permission to do so] from the institute for the settlement of industrial relation disputes.
- A statement reinforced in Articles 153.2 and 155.

Article 153.2
Any termination of employment that takes place for reasons referred to under subsection (1) (none of which apply to JP or TC) shall be declared null and void by law. The entrepreneur shall then be obliged to reemploy the affected worker.
- Or is obliged to continue paying the salaries and entitlements cf. Article 155.

Article 155
Any termination of employment without the decision of the institute for the settlement of industrial relation disputes as referred to under subsection (3) of Article 151 shall be declared null and void by law.

(2) As long as there is no decision from the institute for the settlement of industrial relation disputes, both the entrepreneur and the worker/ labourer must keep on performing their obligations.

The entrepreneur may violate what is stipulated under subsection (2) above by suspending the worker/ labourer who is still in the process of having his/her employment terminated provided that the entrepreneur continues to pay the worker’s wages and other entitlements that he/she normally receives.
- NO payment has been made to either Second Party, not even that promised by BPK-Penabur in its letter of termination. Furthemore, BPK-Penabur has refused - in writing - to process the documentation necessary for residence and employment in Indonesia.

Article 161
In case the worker violates the provisions that are specified under his or her individual work agreement, the enterprise’s rules and regulations, or the enterprise’s collective work agreement, the entrepreneur may terminate his or her employment after the entrepreneur precedes it with the issuance of the first, second and third warning letters consecutively.
- No such letters were ever issued, nor were discussions held.

Respect for Employees by Employers and Legal Protection

Article 32.2
Job placement shall be directed to place people available for work in the right job or position which best suits their skills, trade, capability, talents, interest and ability by observing their dignity and rights as human beings as well as [providing them with] legal protection.
- BPK-Penabur has long had a reputation for treating its teaching staff, both local Indonesian and expatriate staff, with disrespect and intimidation. The summary dismissals within UPI are but one example.

Article 35.3
In employing people who are available for a job, the employers are under an obligation to provide [them with] protection, which shall include protection for their welfare, safety and health, both mental and physical.
- No health insurance was made available to expatriate staff in BPK-Penabur’s UPI programme from August 2004 - July 2006. During this period, at least one employee of UPI was summarily dismissed because of his ill health.

Article 86
Every worker has the right to receive:

• Occupational safety and health protection;
• Protection against immorality and indecency;
• Treatment that shows respect to human dignity and religious values.

- TC was fired during the Muslim fasting month, just prior to Idul Fitri. It was known that his family are Muslim.

Repatriation

Article 48
Employers who employ workers of foreign citizenship are under an obligation to repatriate the workers of foreign citizenship to their countries of origin after their employment comes to an end.
- At no time has BPK-Penabur complied with this Article, not even for three teachers recruited in Australia.

A Few Wise Comments About The Whys

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" | #

Is there justice in Indonesia?

This is an idle question, at least for the next four weeks in my case. Those interested in my ongoing legal process will no doubt be pleased to know that on March 27th the presiding judges at the Industrial Relations Court will issue their verdict. There will be a further week for both sides to lodge arguments about the fine details. We fully expect that we'll be seeking higher compensation based on documents, or the lack of them, which have yet to be presented to the over-worked Lordships.

For example, our employment contracts and letters of dismissal were in English, whereas they should have been in Indonesian in the first instance. Although this was a fundament of our case, we still had to provide certified translations. That several clauses run counter to Act No.13, 2003 concerning Manpower ~ for example, the notion of a probationary period in a supposedly fixed-term contract ~ I suppose means that the added expense we've incurred thereby further help prove our case.

Of course, the major question is how come BPK-Penabur were unable to provide the original documents filed with, presumably, the Departments of Manpower, Education, and Immigration, and the police, in order to process the multitude of permits and visas which enable an expatriate to legally work and reside here.

We can usefully ask why, on a number of occasions, several of us had to leave the office when officialdom was due to visit. We had presumed that our papers were in order. This does naturally lead to thought of criminal investigation, but we'll leave all that to Depnaker to sort that out once our case is settled. That'll be when Media Sekolah, a new-ish weekly tabloid with the lofty aspiration of 'Building Indonesia Through Education' (Membangun Bangsa Melalui Pendidikan) will be publishing a major expose of the network of (supposedly) Christian schools who flagrantly disregard not only the laws governing employment but also the ethics of their religion. They also produce documentaries about corruption for such crime watch TV programmes as SERGAP (on RCTI).

Was it Woody Allen who commented that "Those who can do, those who can't teach, and those who can't teach think they can manage schools." That certainly seems to hold true for too many establishments here in Jakarta. There are other former employees of Penabur who have initiated legal proceedings, the Singapore International Schools franchise network is reportedly embarrassed by the number of judgments awarded against it, and other profit-centred schools are beginning to fear the wrath of fee-paying parents.

This is a shame given the other more important issues facing the education sector, many of which are being raised in Thoughts Outside The Indonesian Box.

Worthy Of Respect?

Foreigners wishing to make a life in Jakarta have a clear choice - live in enclaves with security to keep the riff-raff out or live at street level and interact with the local community.

I have now lived in the same house for twenty years; it was my choice and 'Er Indoors moved in a year or so later. We fit in: the postman, electricity meter reader and even the newspaper 'boy' are long-term regulars. There is a monthly gathering, arisan, which the housewives attend to swap gossip and to contribute Rp.100,000 to a collective kitty which is scooped by one mum on a rotational basis, or according to urgent need.

I very rarely hear the cry "Hello, Mister", nor is the word 'bule' (whitey) often uttered in my presence. The many young children in my neighbourhood ~ a very mixed community in terms of wealth, ethnicity, religion and lifestyle, whatever that is ~ generally greet me with "Good morning/afternoon, Om (uncle)".

So it has come about that the lawyers in my legal case against my erstwhile employers, Badan Pendidikan Kristen Penabur/Ukrida Penabur Internasional, have been appointed because a senior member of the firm lives opposite. It is happenstance that one of the named partners on the letter heading was once an Attorney General in the New Order era, and the other was on the staff of Try Sutrisno when he was Army Chief shortly before becoming Suharto's penultimate Vice President.

Obviously I have not sought out high profile lawyers. I cannot afford to pay their fees upfront, not least because BPK Penabur have yet to pay me for work that I did before I was summarily dismissed. Having legal representation has come about because of the respect I have earned over the years within this community.

Intimidatory letters and phone calls have been Penabur's modus operandi not only during the course of our - yes, I have an ex-colleague in similar distress - legal process. We also have affidavits and documents which suggest that intimidation has been endemic for a number of years, both before and continuing after our own case. There are well-founded allegations of visa irregularities putting the status of expatriates at grave risk of deportation, of tax avoidance, and even an attempted eviction and a death threat. This is all generally non-Christian behaviour unbefitting an organisation which claims to be at the forefront of Indonesia's education system.

There are further allegations of continued non-compliance with manpower regulations. Many, if not all, of our former colleagues (still) do not have legally enforceable employment contracts, and there are, to our knowledge, at least two other cases involving Penabur being dealt with by the Industrial Relations Court, one of which has been brought by Indonesian staff.

This will also be a concern to Curtin University of Perth, Australia, who are co-sponsors of the UPI-Penabur Business School. Their original commitment was with UPI, initially the Penabur high school native speaker English language programme, and they were involved in the original recruitment of native-speaker teaching staff, first in Perth and later here in Jakarta, as well as the supply of courses for extra-curricular classes.

There are no suggestions that their employment practices in Australia are anything but legal and above board, but we are sure that they would not wish to lose their good name by being associated with unethical and illegal practices elsewhere.

Penabur's lawyers suggested at one meeting, a meeting where they were castigated for not providing documents, that I was in breach of 'etiquette' by publishing general comments about the ethics of the Penabur board on the internet.*

They will be interested to know that this post is being published with the knowledge and permission of our legal team.

Full disclosure of evidence will be made here on the Performing Monkeys blog as soon as it has been stated in court. I will also give details of possible criminal charges that we anticipate will be made against senior officers of the Penabur Board, rather than the minions their lawyers have named and who have been deemed disposable.

The actions of these officers demonstrate that they are worthy of no-one's respect, let alone that of their employees.
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* Read the January 2007 archive, posted in order, for a series of background posts on Penabur's "Christian" philosophy.

It doesn't cost much .... 2

It would be very easy to conclude that this region is one big unmitigated disaster area. According to the WALHI (Friends of the Earth Indonesia), Indonesia experienced 135 ecological disasters last year due to forest and environmental degradation.

The executive director of WALHI, Chalid Muhammad,said, "The disasters started with floods and landslides in Jember, East Java, on January 1, 2006, and closed with floods and landslides in northern Aceh which forced some 70,000 to evacuate to safer areas at the end of last year."

The ecological disasters caused big material losses, and claimed thousands of lives, he said.
The floods and landslides that hit Indonesia's Sumatra and Kalimantan islands at the end of the year killed about 300 people. And, of course, they have continued into this year.

He also said that over the last five year, the impacts of environmental damages have increased three times. And the main cause of these preventable disasters?

"Forest exploitations, both legally with the government's permits and illegally."

Pure greed in other words and a total lack of consideration for the consequences of these actions. Whilst the very few enrich themselves and embed themselves in political and business empires, the masses are impoverished. Those forced "to evacuate to safer areas" have to find alternative sources of income to support their families.

Many end up in Jakarta and many more become migrant workers overseas in wealthier countries where, unfortunately, they are often further exploited.

According to Indonesia's Manpower Ministry, around 1.7 million Indonesians work in Malaysia, but 1.2 million of them work illegally. Most of these will have been smuggled in, albeit having 'paid' for their passage by getting into long-term debt as an indentured labourer. Their unjust and unfair employment contracts force them to work long hours at near-poverty level wages in slave-like working conditions.

At the 12th Summit of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) held in Cebu, the Philippines, in January 2007 agreed to right these wrongs.

The Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), a network of 260 migrant workers’ association, trade unions and migrants’ rights advocates in the region, had long urged the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to protect the rights of millions of migrant workers in the region.

They issued a press release(.pdf) :

“Southeast Asia has a large population of labor migrants, many of whose rights are violated on the basis of their race, ethnicity, gender or creed. We call on ASEAN to enshrine in its Charter international core labor standards including freedom of association, the right to organize and bargain collectively and elimination of all forms of discrimination at the workplace.”

Today (Saturday, January 12th 2007), the 10 ASEAN member countries are due to sign a declaration on migrant worker rights which spells out the rights and duties of the receiving and origin countries of the workers. There is one potential stumbling block concerning the rights of migrant workers to have their families with them.

However, this should be resolved as there are 'higher' international conventions and agreements (UN and ILO) which the countries are, by and large, signatories of. It is to be hoped that Indonesia, in particular, will enforce this agreement. Although Indonesia has pledged to ratify the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, it has yet to sign it.*

Given the importance to the Indonesian economy of the inflow of money to migrant worker families, money which one may presume lessens the unemployment rate (40%) and the number of those deemed to be living in poverty, that was an important day. That is if the government enforces the law.

“Labor migration provides significant economic contributions to both sending and receiving countries. Remittances from labor migrants across the region amount to billions of dollars. If use properly, remittances can be an additional means for just and people-centered development, provided that appropriate institutional support and economic opportunity exists.”

Of course, having agreed to protect the rights of migrant workers overseas the Indonesian government must be seen to be enforcing the domestic law on the employment of all workers, including we 'migrants' from the so-called developed countries.

*Other Conventions which Indonesia has yet to ratify include the optional protocol to Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), optional protocol to CAT, optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on the involvement of children in armed conflict, optional protocol to CRC on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

It doesn't cost much .... 5

As it is cheaper to buy a new DVD machine than to have it repaired, it is, I suppose, little wonder that there is little pride of possession. Quantity replaces quality.

Unfortunately, this rapacious and unthinking perspective is also all-pervasive in the pompously titled human resource development departments. We are but cogs in a machine, inter-changeable and fully disposable. You don't have to accept this job; we can always get someone cheaper.

Clock in, clock out. Do your job and don't complain. You are in our employ purely at our pleasure, for our profits.

How we live by time
- Dave Allen

A watch, a clock.
We're brought up to respect the clock, to admire the clock.

Punctuality.
We live our life to the clock.
You wake to the clock.
You go to work to the clock.
You clock in to the clock.
You clock out to the clock.
You come home to the clock.
You eat to the clock.
You drink to the clock.
You go to bed to the clock.
You go back to work to the clock.

You do that for forty years of your life.
You retire.
And what do they fucking give you?

A clock!

Success is the aim of every company in the world. To make a company success, every employee in the company must have the same aim with the company.

Of course, when you don't know the aims of the company, it can be very difficult for employees to stick with the game plan. Penabur has never issued its expatriate employees a 'Vision and Mission Statement'.

Every employee must do the job with the best potential as they can.
Agreed, but the five teacher co-ordinators (in three years!) have been unable to offer support to NETs as they were either too busy fighting the NETs' corner or defending their own.

To make our company a great place to work, our approach is to make trust between managers and employees, this is the primary defining characteristic of the very best workplaces.
Trust? Oral agreements which are reneged because there none in writing. Employment contracts which, apart from the original ones written in August 2004 (partly by me), cannot have been agreed, as required by law, with the Manpower Ministry as the contracts themselves do not encompass terms and conditions as specified by law.

Trust? When every working expatriate in Indonesia is aware of the consequences - potential deportation and blacklisting - of being caught with inadequate paperwork. Yet there are few expatriates within the Penabur organisation who have not found themselves in this predicament for variable lengths of time.

Every employee must do the job with the best potential as they can.
Agreed, but what is the job? No job descriptions have been issued since August 2004. There is no support system for the expatriate teachers. The teacher co-ordinators have been unable to offer support to NETs as they had absolutely no support from management themselves.

We are a team, we work as a team and we share the fruit of success together.
In our commitment to communities, we don't just seek near-term results - we also want lasting impact.
Within Penabur's UPI programme there is no fixed salary scale for the teachers as, according to Pak Robert Robianto, the Chairman of BPK Penabur, Jakarta, there are budgetary constraints and the programme is borderline financially. Teachers are expected to negotiate their own terms, a demeaning process for those professionals who believe that education is a service to be provided rather than a product to be sold.

The lasting impact is that in the first two years, more than half of the expatriate staff recruited left, mostly pushed rather than jumped, full of resentment at the disrespectful and inhumane* treatment.

I am one of those, but I am not alone. In my (our) efforts to negotiate and to reach an amicable settlement, the blame for the non-payment of agreed (in writing) monies due, for the uncertainty of expatriate employment and worker status, for the perceived non-payment of income tax and for the many other irregularities, both contractural and structural, the blame game has almost reached the bottom rung of the administrative staff.

I always got on with the security guards and office boy. Perhaps they'll give me satisfaction. After all, they're not the ones facing trials in open court.


By the way, the fine words in italics are those of Pak Oki Widjaya - CEO Galva Corporation (on the left of the seated front row) and (formerly?) chair of the UPI Board. He is one of those primarily responsible for the predicament that BPK - Penabur now finds itself in. Note that he says one thing about the company that gives his family financial security and another in the 'servitude' of BPK Penabur which screws its employees.

Oh, and Penabur teachers have to clock in and out of their schools.

* I was tempted to write 'inhuman' as the local, Indonesian, teachers have been called 'monkeys' - a particularly rude epithet - by the then Head of Programs. One day he told me that the project had been set up to meet the demands of parents who wanted their children to see a white face in the classroom. A performing monkey, no less.

A partial document (.pdf) detailing how Penabur has infringed Act No.13, 2003 pertaining to Manpower can be found here.