Asia-Pacific Labor Union appreciates Antara for its working agreement

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Asia-Pacific Labor Union "UNI Asia and Pacific" has appreciated the National News Agency "Antara" and its employees union SPA which had signed a working agreement for employees` welfare.

President of the UNI Asia and Pacific, Joseph de Bruyn expressed the appreciation when visiting the News Agency here on Tuesday.

Bruyn who was accompanied by the UNI`s secretary, Christopher Ng, and director of the UNI Apro, Dr. Kun Wardana also hoped that Antara`s working aggreement could ensure legal certainty for the Agency`s journalists and employees.

UNI also believed that the Agency`s management has established good communication with its workers union, thus, other press organizations in the country as well as in the Asia-Pacific region can take example from such sound communication.

Meanwhile, Antara`s president director, Mukhlis Yusuf expressed gratitude for UNI`s appreciation.

"We, the management and the SPA have developed a communication culture in this agency, among others through e-mail that can be easily reached by the employees in a bid to harmonize the two-side relations," Mukhlis Yusuf said.

In addition, Bruyn invited Antara`s management to attend an Asia-Pacific tripartite meeting which will involve entrepreneurs, workers and governments, scheduled to be opened by the Manpower Affairs Minister, Erman Soeparno in Jakarta on Wednesday (July 22).

In his talks with Antara`s management, Bruyn also touched on the country`s social and political issues following the bomb explosions at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in the Mega Kuningan area here on Friday (July 17) morning.

"There was no feeling of fear in my coming from Australia to Jakarta, and so the other UNI delegates from several other countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal and Sri Lanka, because we are confident that the Indonesian government can guarantee the foreign visitors` safety," he disclosed.

Aside from that, Bruyn also believed that the bombing terrors will not cause a bad effect to Indonesia`s economy, as the matter of fact that the recent global economic crisis did not have a serious effect.

"Many foreign investors I met still expressed their confidence in

Indonesia`s safety after the bombing incident," he cited.

In the meantime, Christopher Ng, said that the workers unions in Indonesia generally experienced significant improvement compared with that in other parts of the Asia-Pacific region.

Antara which was established on December 13, 1937 distributed information to more than 300 print and 65 electronic media, and has several correspondents abroad.(*)