ExxonMobil and Pertamina sued by former employees
Friday, August 25 2000 - 03:30 AM WIB
Former employees of American oil and gas company Exxon Mobil Indonesia filed a lawsuit against the company and state oil and gas company Pertamina in the Central Jakarta District Court over severance pay.
The lawsuit was filed by 215 former employees of the company, which is formerly known as Mobil Oil Indonesia (MOI), who claimed that they did not receive severance pay in full in 1996 during the streamlining program of the company.
They were among the 421 employees who joined Mobil Oil's Mutual Agreement Separation Package (MASP) package that year, Kontan weekly tabloid reported in its latest Friday edition.
The former employees argued under the existing regulation, they should have received a severance pay package, which included funds from the Pension Fund of Mobil Oil Indonesia's Employees (Dapekemi). However, the company withheld the pension fund with support from Pertamina.
Head of the MOI Solidarity Forum Paul Musak accused Pertamina of colluding with Mobil Oil to withhold the pension fund which totaled Rp 25 billion (US$1=Rp 8,402), Kontan reported.
Musak said they had tried to seek an out-of-court settlement to the dispute but the effort brought no results.
The former workers hired the EY Kanter and Associates law firm to represent them in the dispute, while lawyer Amir Syamsudin will represent MOI.
Amir denied the collusion allegation, saying MOI would not dare to commit collusion because it is illegal under the American law. The company should have faced grave punishment, if it had done the illegal thing.
Pertamina also denied the collusion allegation and welcome the lawsuit.
"That's what we are waiting for," spokesman for Pertamina's foreign contractors management body, said. (*)