Jokowi denies that the job creation law eases layoffs, what are the facts? All pages

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – President Joko Widodo mentioned a lot of misinformation and jokes that caused the Creation Labor Law to be rejected by the public.

One of them deals with termination of employment (PHK).

Jokowi denied that the Employment Creation Law would make it easier for companies to unilaterally lay off their employees.

“Can companies be fired unilaterally at any time? Not true. The truth is that companies cannot unilaterally fire workers,” Jokowi said in a press release from the Presidential Palace, Bogor, on Friday (10 / 09/2020)

What are the facts?

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When comparing the Employment Creation Law with Law No. 13 of 2003 on Manpower, there are a number of rules that have changed regarding layoffs.

Article 161 of the Labor Law regulates that employers can fire employees if the worker violates the provisions stipulated in the employment contract, company regulations or collective bargaining agreement.

However, layoffs can only take effect after workers receive warning letters up to three times in a row.

This article was eliminated through the Employment Creation Law.

Instead, the Employment Creation Law is added to article 154A letter j, which regulates similar matters.

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However, the provisions regarding warning letters three times in a row are no longer included in the new provision.

Then the workers also highlighted article 155 of the Labor Law, which was also repealed by the Employment Creation Law.

This article stipulates that dismissals carried out without a stipulation from the institution for the resolution of labor relations disputes are null and void by law.

In addition, this article also regulates that companies can suspend workers who are still in the process of being laid off, but are still obliged to pay wages and other rights that workers normally receive.

“If there are no regulations that establish that dismissals without permission from the labor relations resolution agency are void and there is no obligation to pay other rights during the dispute process, the dismissals will be easier,” said the president of the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions, Said Iqbal.

Also read: Jokowi’s statement on the Job Creation Law is considered not to answer the problem

Labor also highlighted a number of additional articles related to layoffs in the Employment Creation Law that previously did not exist in the Manpower Law.

One of them is the incorporation of article 154 A, paragraph 1, letter b), which regulates that companies can make redundancies for reasons of efficiency.

“With this article, companies could layoffs for efficiency reasons even though they were making big profits,” Said Iqbal said.

Then there is the addition of Article 154 A, paragraph 1, letter (i) which states that companies can fire employees because employees are absent.

However, losses to follow-up for how long are not expected.

“Then it can only take one day. While in Law 13 of 2003, dismissals for absenteeism can only be made after being absent for 5 consecutive days and having been cited at least 2 times in writing, “said Said Iqbal.

Regarding the labor demand, everything that regulates layoffs is returned to Law No. 13 of 2003.