Former PT Timah employees sue ex-boss Kuntoro
Tuesday, August 29 2000 - 02:30 AM WIB
At least 100,000 former employees of state owned tin mining company PT Timah and their families have threatened to sue their former boss Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, who is now the president of the state electricity company PLN, over the later's decision to carry out a massive dismissal in early 1990s.
Neraca daily reported on Tuesday that the employees had also demanded the government to temporarily suspend Kuntoro from his current position in order to allow him to settle the dispute.
Bambang Poernomo, the head of the association which groups the tin mining company's dismissed employees mostly living in Bangka, Belitung and Singkep islands, said that the massive lay-off program launched by Kuntoro had caused misery to most of the company's workers.
He also charged Kuntoro with giving misleading information to the public as if the ex-employees received a large amount of a compensation payment. "In fact, what they received came from their own pension money," he was quoted as saying by the daily.
Bambang also said that most of the workers were forced to resign, not due to their own will as widely reported by the press. (*)