THE ONE-HOUR LETTER: When a Director Cancels a Government Hearing With Less Notice Than a Pizza Delivery
- Shaka Amanirenas
- Mar 13
- 4 min read
On March 4, 2026, representatives from the Provincial Manpower Office, the City Manpower Office of Batam, the City Legislature of Batam, the employees, and their union arrived at the city legislature building as scheduled for a formal public hearing, a Rapat Dengar Pendapat Umum (RDPU).
They waited.
One hour before the session was set to begin, a letter arrived. Not by email. Not by official messenger. By Gojek, Indonesia's ride-hailing and parcel delivery application, addressed to a random staff member at the building, not to the leadership of the legislature that had convened the hearing.
The letter bore the name of PT Pegaunihan Technology Indonesia's director: Andy Hsieh.
The reason given: the company needed more time to prepare.
Every government official was already in the building.
The employees were there.
Their union was there.
The legislature was ready.
Only the company was absent.
I. THE ANATOMY OF AN EXCUSE
Let us examine the stated reason carefully: "belum cukup waktu untuk persiapan", not enough time to prepare.
Prepare for what, exactly?
This case has been running since August 2025, seven months before March 4, 2026. The disciplinary sanctions have already been issued. The punishment has already been carried out. Seven months of bonuses have already been withheld. The employees have already served every consequence of the sanctions.
The only thing the company needed to do at the RDPU was answer one question that has been asked, officially, across eight government forums:
Where is the proof?
That question requires no preparation. It requires evidence, evidence that either exists or doesn't. If it exists, the company has had seven months to organize it. If it doesn't exist, no amount of additional time will produce it.
The "preparation" excuse collapses under the simplest scrutiny: you do not need to prepare to show what you already have.
II. WHO WAS IN THAT BUILDING
To understand what the cancellation means, consider who had already arrived:
Wasnaker Provinsi Kepulauan Riau
Wasnaker Kota Batam
Dinas Tenaga Kerja Kota Batam
Pihak Pekerja
PUK FSP LEM SPSI PT Pegaunihan Technology Indonesia
Every party with an interest in this case, every government body with oversight responsibility, every worker representative, made the journey to the legislature building on time.
The company that issued the sanctions. The company that has been asked for evidence for seven months. The company whose director signed the cancellation letter.
They sent a letter via a delivery app instead. This is not a scheduling conflict. This is a choice.
III. THE ETHICS OF A ONE-HOUR NOTICE
In any professional or institutional context, cancelling a formal government proceeding requires:
Reasonable advance notice to all parties
Official communication through proper channels
A legitimate reason that can be verified
Respect for the time and resources of every party involved
The March 4 cancellation satisfied none of these requirements.
One hour is not advance notice. It is the absence of notice. By the time the letter arrived via Gojek, government officials from two separate manpower offices had already traveled to the building. Their time, paid for by Indonesian taxpayers, was wasted. The legislature session was disrupted. The employees, who have been waiting seven months for a single substantive hearing, left without answers. Again.
And the method of delivery, a parcel courier app, addressed to a random staff member rather than the legislature leadership, suggests either profound institutional disrespect or a deliberate strategy to create technical ambiguity about whether the notice was properly received.
Neither interpretation reflects well on the company.
IV. THE PATTERN THAT CANNOT BE COINCIDENCE
This was not the first cancellation. It was the eighth evasion.
Bipartite I: September 2025: Employees expelled from their own hearing. Evidence submitted ex-parte to the union without their presence.
Bipartite II: HR didn't appear.
Bipartite III: HR didn't appear.
Tripartite I: HR attended without decision-makers. No evidence presented.
Tripartite II: October 27, 2025: HR didn't appear. Two days later, on October 29, the company's HR team posted a TikTok dance video with the caption: "Don't spit in the plate you eat from", directed at the employees during an active dispute.
Tripartite III: November 10, 2025: HR refused to submit CCTV footage as evidence.
Wasnaker: Provincial Labor Inspectorate: Company ignored an official summons issued by the Head of Office.
DPRD RDPU, March 4, 2026: Cancellation via Gojek. One hour before. Signed by Andy Hsieh.
Eight forums. Seven months. Zero evidence ever presented in any official proceeding.
At what point does a pattern of evasion become the evidence itself?
V. WHAT THE CANCELLATION REVEALS
The company has had seven months to prepare evidence of two alleged violations.
Instead, across eight official forums, they have chosen absence over accountability at every turn, bipartite sessions, tripartite mediations, labor inspectorate summons, and now a city legislature hearing.
The employees they sanctioned have attended every single forum. They have submitted written arguments. They have engaged with every official process available to them under Indonesian law. The company that sanctioned them has not substantiated a single charge in any official proceeding.
Engly Heryanto Ndaomanu and Rieke Dyah Astiwi are still waiting.
For evidence of violations they were punished for seven months ago.
Evidence that, apparently, requires more time to prepare.
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