Unions trying to establish their relevance is how I perceive the...

Unions trying to establish their relevance is how I perceive the ‘aspirations approach’ to the Commission.
The workers were not permanent employees but employed under period contracts so the Unions claims of unilateral severance of permanent employees is a stretch of the situation.
The Union brings up the point that the workers should still be employed if the company is still in business, which is another stretch as the company is no longer producing a product with which to sustain the activities of the workforce. New employment contracts would appear more appropriate in line with the plant requirements to its situation.

The Sengkang generator workers were quite rightly on severance contracts with expiry coinciding with the PPA expiry. This was brought up at a previous Commission hearing regarding the employment terms at Sengkang. The only complaint that was found to be tenable at the time is that the terms of operation for the generator called for employment of a full time doctor on site for a workforce of ~35 people. PTES instead had an arrangement with the local medical centre because the lost time history at the site hardly warranted a doctors full time attendance. That PTES was operating outside the terms in this regard was more of an issue at the time than the workers future employment prospects.

The main disparity at Sengkang is that although PLN approved the additional generating capacity at Sengkang brought online ~9 years ago, there was no equivalent contract extension to coincide with its depreciated value at end of life, so there is a residual value at present which is unattractive to PLN to take on the generator as it’s own, alongside the recent 2018 policy to reduce dependence on gas generation overall in Indonesia by ~24% plus by 2028. The other disparity that the 2018 policy effectively cancelled any company ambitions to increase capacity. Meanwhile PLN have brought online a 1000mw coal generator in East Sulawesi and added 100mw to another coal generator in South Sulawesi, so no hesitation in using coal to provide base load while ignoring gas and going green with solar.

Some things never add up, which is another problem.