Yogyakarta, June 12th 2020 – Youth Studies Centre (YouSure) FISIPOL UGM held another YouSure Bincang Muda (The Youth Talk) that titled as ‘Pandemic and the Risk of Young Workers’ on Friday (12/6). This discussion event was held through YouTube Live feature and presented two speakers, they were Titis Larasati (a young worker) and Dani Eko Wiyono, S.T., M.T., The Head of Confederation of Indonesian Workers Unions of the Yogyakarta (KSBSI DIY). The discussion lasted from 02.30 p.m. to 04.00 p.m. and was moderated by Dana Fahadi from YouSure.
In this Bincang Muda, YouSure also contributed their thoughts about the government organization in their decision making about the vulnerable workers because of COVID-19 pandemic. Started from the announcement of COVID-19 emergency from WHO, the central government as well as the local government applied the large or small scale social restrictions (Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar/PSBB). All of the activities from the academic activities to the social activities were very restricted, it also included economic activities. Because of the PSBB, many companies applied work from home (WFH) system. But on the other hand, there were jobs that must be done in its place or must be done physically, such as ojek, street vendors, kiosks owner, and many more. There were also many workers that were fired in the particular sectors such as hospitality sectors, restaurants, amusement parks, etc.
Related to that matter, Titis Larasati who is a student and also a worker in a tourism sector in Yogyakarta also affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the employees in her company were laid off and free to look for another job. Titis admitted that the response of her company was very appropriate by giving the workers their one month’s full salary and severance pay. She was very salute to the company response regarding this issue. “For me, it (the company response) were very thoughtful. They did not think that we just a worker, but we also have families that must be financed,” Titis said.
As a person that active in a workers union, Dani Eko said that the companies that were thoughtful like the company where Titis worked, could be counted by our fingers. There were at least 38.000 workers that affected and were laid off in Yogyakarta with no further details. Many companies manipulated this pandemic to lay off their workers without paying their severance pay. Even though each companies has their own bookkeepings, but hundreds of companies just said that they were at loss and their income were decreasing without any proofs. Even there were many companies that forced their workers to sign the resignation letter from their companies, “So, the young workers were very pitiful. They were pressured, it became worse if they did not know about the manpower law. Sorry, but I should say that those ignorance were being used by the jerk businessmen,” Dani Eko revealed.
This messy condition for all of the parties could be an evaluation for the government and many people were expected to get a solution, so that all of the parties could survive. Next was for the new normal discourse, that we should live in a harmony with COVID-19, it was judged to be inappropriate. New normal was appropriate to be applied if the COVID-19 indication had decreased, but in reality, until today the COVID-19 graphic keeped going up. If it still be applied, there must be a tight SOP in every places regarding the health protocol, including the companies. Even though in reality many companies did not provide any personal protective equipment (PPE) for the workers. In fact that has given the PPE was the House of Representative members and other high rank officials.