TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Labor Party considers the work of the Minister and Deputy Minister of Manpower incompetent for failing to prevent the layoffs of thousands of employees of PT Sri Rejeki Isman Tbk or Sritex. President of the Labor Party, Said Iqbal, stated that the closure of Sritex on March 1, 2025, is the right momentum to oust Yassierli and Immanuel Ebenezer from their positions as Minister and Deputy Minister of Manpower. "The Labor Party demands the removal of the Minister and Deputy Minister of Manpower because they cannot even handle Sritex, let alone manage factories all over Indonesia," Said said in a virtual press conference on Sunday, March 2, 2025.

Said referred to Yassierli and Immanuel neglecting their responsibilities towards the mandate of President Prabowo Subianto, who wanted to curb mass layoffs at Sritex. In addition, according to Said, the two officials should be dismissed because the layoff mechanism implemented by Sritex management is illegal. According to Said, the layoff mechanism for thousands of Sritex employees was not preceded by bipartite and tripartite negotiations. However, industrial issues such as layoffs should start with negotiations between the company and employee representatives to reach a fair agreement, Said explained.

He also highlighted how the Manpower Office of Sukoharjo Regency was not involved in the tripartite layoff mechanism at Sritex. Referring to this situation, Said said that Yassierli and Immanuel were only bluffing about handling the layoff storm at Sritex. "The Minister and Deputy Minister of Manpower are just paying lip service if they claim that there are no layoffs, but in fact, there are," he said.

On the other hand, Said stated that the performance of Yassierli and Immanuel could only be acknowledged if they summoned the leaders of PT Sritex to reveal how the layoff agreement mechanism was formed and the amount of severance pay for the former employees of the textile giant.

Said pointed out that to this day, there is no clarity on the amount of severance pay that will be received by at least 8,400 former Sritex employees. He believed that this lack of transparency is one of the failures of Yassierli and Immanuel's performance.

Prior to this, President Prabowo made various efforts to save Sritex, which was declared bankrupt by the Semarang District Court on Wednesday, October 23, 2024. These efforts were made to protect the approximately 50,000 employees from layoffs.

One of the methods used by Prabowo to save tens of thousands of employees at the largest textile company in Southeast Asia was by instructing four ministries to consider various options and schemes. The four ministries are the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN), and the Ministry of Manpower.

However, the government's anticipation failed after the bankruptcy curators of Sritex stated that there was no business sustainability or going concern. One of the curators of Sritex, Denny Ardiansyah, revealed several considerations for not continuing the business of PT Sritex. Some of these considerations included the lack of working capital, labor needs, and high production costs, all of which were feared to result in bankruptcy losses. Furthermore, the curator would execute the bankruptcy assets, which would then be appraised by an independent accountant. The bankrupt assets would then be auctioned to pay off debts.

The Coordinator of the Sritex Group Workers Union, Slamet Kaswanto, confirmed the total number of employees and workers of Sritex who lost their jobs due to the bankruptcy decision, from January to February 26, 2025, amounted to 10,665 people. This number is from four companies under the Sritex Group, namely PT Sritex Sukoharjo, PT Bitratex Semarang, PT Sinar Panja Jaya Semarang, and PT Primayuda Boyolali.

The four companies under the Sritex Group were declared bankrupt by the Semarang Commercial Court for failing to pay their debts to creditors. The bankruptcy verdict was issued after their supplier, PT Indo Bharat Rayon, sued Sritex for non-payment of debts. The total debt of Sritex at that time reached Rp 26.02 trillion. Their debt to Indo Bharat alone was only Rp 101.31 billion as of June 2024 or 0.38 percent. However, the delay in debt payments had fatal consequences after the company entered into a homologation agreement with creditors, which automatically led to bankruptcy. Sritex challenged the verdict by seeking an appeal. The Supreme Court rejected Sritex's cassation appeal on December 18, 2024.

Rizki Dewi Ayu and Adil Al Hasan contributed for this article.

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