Thursday, 10 December 2015

BPJS LABOR INSURANCE: THE PARTICIPATION OF INFORMAL WORKERS



Some people admitted that participation of informal workers in the BPJS Social Insurance Plan was not easy to exercise. The problem was that the payment mechanism for workers of this sector was never formulated. Although workers of the informal sector could make payments the manual way at appointed banks, obedience of the participant itself was a problem it its own. In response to that matter BPJS promised to ease the procedure of application by workers of the informal sector, i.e. by just using a KTP-ID.

The Director of Strategic Planning and Information Technology Agung Supriyadi stated in Jakarta on Thursday (13/8) state card of the applicant could be registered at the BPJS office. Meaning Informal workers needed not to take all the trouble of applying for a member ship card at the BPJS office. Today the applicant’s registration number is the ID card number itself.

With reference to Population Research Data Center of LIPI it was still necessary to make overall announcement of Health Insurance for independent workers or workers of the informal sector. Survey by LIPI in Surabaya on 150 workers of the informal sector unveiled that 99% claimed they did not know anything about BPJS Health Insurance. The reason was that they did had to work enough time to seek for information as they had to work for longer hours than the informal sector; besides, access to information was not so easy for them.

Furthermore according to LIPI Survey other handicaps in the implementation of SJSN National Insurance was that BPJS premium was too high to be borne by workers while control over companies’ obedience was not maximized as the number of Government’s personnel to manage the plan was limited.

The Ministry of Labor as stakeholder and Government representative of BPJS labor expected that the image of BPJS Labor in the eyes of the public was not as bad as the BPJS Health insurance which had been widely criticized by the public. The Director of Social Insurance of the Ministry of Labor Wahyu Widodo admitted that although there was once outburst due to lengthy dissolving of balance for Retirement Plan, the Minister expected it would not worsen BPJS image.

Wahyu was optimistic that with the Pension Plan run on July 1 last the body would be acclaimed by the people, especially workers because the benefits rendered by BPJS was this time better. Wahyu said that the Labor Accident Insurance was now better financed. The Pension Plan rendered brought sound benefit and there was also scholarship and mortality plan. “This is BPJS plus points” Widodo said.

The Ministry of Labor reckoned many businesspeople still broke the rule of membership in Social Insurance run by BPJS. The violations were deliberately done and disadvantaged workers. Widodo reported there were some modus detected by the Ministry, i.e. companies not registering their employees to become participant of BPJS Labor.

The second modus was companies only registered part of their employees as BPJS member, and the rest not registered so the premium was reduced. The third modus was companies registering all of their workers as BPJS member but not including all of their workers as BPJS member but not including all of the packages legally compulsory. According to the Law workers had the right to get insurance Working Accident Protection, Pension Plan, Retirement Plan, and Death Insurance. (SS)

Business News - August 19, 2015

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