Two weeks ago, there were reports that numerous drivers for motorcycle taxi service Go-Jek would go on strike over a decrease in the amount they were paid per kilometer. That strike largely failed to materialize, but now there are new threats of strikes taking place this week, starting today.
Fitrijansjah Toisutta, the Go-Jek driver identified in the media as the organizer of the strikes, warned that hundreds of drivers would not be working today, Wednesday and Friday.
“We plan to take action on the 16th, 18th, and 20th of November. At least 200 drivers will be involved, but that number could increase,” Fitrijansjah told Kompas on on Sunday.
According to him, drivers were planning to demonstrate at the Go-Jek office in Kemang, South Jakarta, as well as at the offices of the Ministry of Labor.
Fitrijansjah said the strike and demonstrations were taking place in response to a new Rp 40,000 deduction the company was taking from all of their drivers’ salaries.
“They said it was for uniforms, jackets, attributes, all of that. In fact, it is not in our [employment] agreement. In the agreement, deductions can only be done to pay them back for our mobile phones,” Fitrijansjah said.
The previous Go-Jek driver strike was threatened after the company reduced the amount of money its drivers would make per kilometer from Rp 4,000 to Rp 3,000. In a message sent out to its drivers, the management of the company said that any employees that took part in the strike would be fired and subsequently the threatened demonstrations never took place.
Fitrijansjah said that the goal of this new strike was not to get drivers to leave the company but to communicate their dissatisfaction to the company’s management in the hopes that their issues would be addressed.
Update: About a dozen Go-Jek drivers demonstrated outside of Go-Jek’s main office in Kemang this morning at around 10am. After about 20 minutes representatives of the company’s management broke up the protest and had the drivers go inside the office for a closed meeting.
