Workers Unions To Protest Electricity Bill Signing
Monday, 07 September, 2009 | 22:03 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Hundreds of members of Workers Union of the State Electricity Company staged a rally on Monday to reject plan to pass the new electricity bill scheduled for Tuesday (8/9), threatening a large scale of strike if the bill is passed.

Workers said the implication of the bill was privatization of the state energy firm. Achmad Daryoko Head of the Federation of Strategic State Company Workers Union said “power plants, transmission network, distribution, and retail sales of electricity will become separate business sectors and open to the free market.”

Bambang warned the public of the consequences of the measures which would set electricity tariffs based on market equilibrium saying “tariff could shot five-fold.”

Daryoko also assessed posibility that the government would sell power plants in Java and Bali estimated to worth around Rp200 trillion.

The Workers Challenge Alliance (Aliansi Buruh Menggugat) a trade union federation which consisted of several workers union stated their support for the efforts to thwart the signing of the bill.

In public a discussion on “Building Solidarity to Reject The Electricity Bill” last week, coordinator for Workers Challenge Alliance Anwar Maruf said “we will call for the public and electricity consumers to collectively reject the regulation that will create electricity cartel.”

A member with the federation, Congress of Indonesia Unions Alliance (KASBI) said ”the state can not release control of the electricity sector to private business.”

WAHYU DHYATMIKA