TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Prana Rifsana, Chairman of the Workers Union of PT Bank Permata Tbk., said that workers in the banking sector in some regions are still receiving salary below the provincial minimum wage.
He took the case from Depok city. In determining the sectoral minimum wage, the workers in the banking services industry with the trading services were decided to earn Rp3.69 million per month.
The salary is lower than the employee salary in the modern market sector, supermarket, and hypermarket such as Indomaret, which set at Rp3.98 million per month. Bank employee salary is far below the salary of workers in the basic chemical, organic chemical, energy and metal industry that is set at Rp4.17 million per month.
In East Java, the bank employee salary in Surabaya is lower than bank employee salary in Pasuruan City.
The lack of bank employee welfare became one of the advocacy agenda that was carried by the Communication Network of Banking Workers Union (Jarkom SP Banking). The union of the 19 banks, they demand a decent wage for the workers in the banking sector.
Their main demand is a 30% increase above the Provincial Minimum Wage (UMP). They feel that they deserve it because of the big contribution of the banking sector to the national economy.
According to Prana, the low wages received by bank employee is caused by the lack of union involvement in the determination of wages. The unions have tried to negotiate with banking associations such as the National Banking Association (Perbanas), the Association of Indonesian Sharia Banking (Asbisindo), and the State Bank Association (Himbara).
However, at each of the negotiations, none of the associations could represent the banking industry in negotiating the minimum wage of the banking sector.
He explained that in the third quarter of last year, the banking sector's profit contribution to the national economy reached 27.53 percent, only lost to pharmaceutical issuers.
BISNIS.COM