‘Orange troops’ city cleaners say they were fired because they can’t play futsal
January 12, 2017
The Jakarta Sanitation Agency’s workers, famously known as the ‘pasukan orange’ (orange troops) in reference to their uniform color, have lately been doing a pretty darned great job at keeping parts of the city clean, particularly our rivers. But a group of orange troopers say they were recently fired from their jobs for something completely unrelated to their ability to clean.
Eight of those workers, who represented a total of 27 terminated workers, yesterday complained to temp Governor Soni Sumarsono that they were fired for no apparent reason, and some say they were fired because they can’t play futsal (a variation of football that is usually played indoors and is highly popular in Jakarta).
“Why [were their contracts terminated] just because they can’t play futsal? There are two requirements to be a city cleaner: at least a middle school graduate, and Jakarta KTP ID card owners are given priority,” Sumarsono said after hearing the fired cleaners’ complaints, as quoted by Merdeka yesterday.
Sartono, one of the cleaners who was fired, said he believes that there might be corrupt dealings behind his and his peers’ contract termination. He said his job termination came right after he had successfully negotiated a pay raise, which was supposed to be paid to him on January 3.
“On January 4, I was suddenly fired. I don’t know why,” he said. The 27 fired cleaners were all employed by East Jakarta’s Sanitation Agency. As such, Sumarsono said he would question the agency head in the future and carry out an investigation into the matter.
“This is what I want to clarify. For now, this is just a complaint that there were certain additional requirements for employment. That’s what I want to find out [whether or not] those who can play futsal are given priority. This might be a requirement added unilaterally by district secretaries,” he said.
It’s not yet known, if true, why cleaners would be required to be able to play futsal (one guess is that maybe some people take inter-district futsal competitions too seriously). If that is the case, then we hope the cleaners get their jobs back, because them losing their jobs over their inability to play a sport is highly ludicrous, so much so that The Simpsons once devoted an entire episode on the subject:
