Lingering problems: Industrial action, peace<\/p>\n
Vedi R. Hadiz<\/p>\n
In January 2004, the minimum wage in Jakarta will stand at Rp
\n671,550 per month, representing an increase of 6.3 percent
\ncompared to the year before. Moreover, this certainly seems a
\n"good" wage compared to the level of around Rp 150,000 just seven
\nor so years ago. Though the minimum wage levels in regions across
\nthe sprawling archipelago differ, similar increases have taken
\nplace elsewhere.<\/p>\n
As a result, many people might well be tempted to ask, why are
\nworkers, especially in Indonesia's manufacturing zones, still
\ncomplaining? Why do we incessantly hear of worker unrest?
\nIndustrialists, domestic and foreign, have often complained that
\nlabor strikes are one of the key reasons that Indonesia has
\nbecome so unattractive as an investment locale. "We'll go to
\nVietnam or China" is what is commonly heard, or some other place
\nwhere workers are less "ungrateful".<\/p>\n
If the problem is lack of freedom of organization, hasn't
\nthere been a significant liberalization of the laws and
\nregulations regarding trade unionism? After all, the New Order-
\ntainted All-Indonesia Worker's Union (SPSI) is no longer the sole
\nstate-recognized labor organization in the country. There are
\nliterally dozens of union organizations now registered at the
\nDepartment of Manpower.<\/p>\n
So what's the problem? Do workers not realize that, with tens
\nof millions of people unemployed, out of a workforce of over 100
\nmillion (Central Bureau of Statistics data, 2003), there is only
\nso much that they can expect? Too much complaining can mean the
\nloss of jobs for their fellow Indonesians. "What a bloody selfish
\nlot these workers are", the English might say.<\/p>\n
Well, it is unfortunate that the point of view of the
\nrank-and-file worker does not often make it into the national
\nnewspapers or television programs. This is hardly surprising:
\nbusinesspeople are much more influential, and the middle class so
\nmuch more eloquent. They look better on TV as well. Who is going
\nto interview a laborer from Tangerang (Banten), Sidoarjo (East
\nJava), or Medan's (North Sumatra) industrial zone, to get their
\ntake on the toils of life in Indonesia today? Besides, when they
\nactually do get on TV, they seem so emotional, so uneducated and
\ndare I say, so dishevelled. Certainly such people cannot know
\nanything about life, let alone as much as a well-dressed
\ncorporate lawyer or politician in Jakarta. They should just be
\ngrateful that they can earn a living -- look at all those
\nunemployed who yearn for a job!<\/p>\n
This writer is, perhaps inevitably, a member of the middle
\nclass intelligentsia -- a section of society that had quite a
\ncomfortable life-style during most of the New Order. But for
\nwell over a decade now, he has been visiting industrial workers
\nat their homes, sometimes their workplaces, just chatting about
\ntheir conditions of life and work in general. These
\nconversations -- which often develop into real discussions about
\nsocial issues -- have taken place all around the Jabotabek area,
\nparts of Central and East Java, as well as North Sumatra -- quite
\na good cross-section of Indonesia's industrial centers.
\nUndoubtedly, some NGO activists that live for periods of time
\nwith workers in sprawling urban slums have deeper insights into
\nwhat social scientists like me call "the proletariat". But I
\nreckon I can say a few things to try to explain the seeming
\nparadox of higher wages, freedom of organization -- and yet -- no
\nreal industrial peace.<\/p>\n
The following is one writer's, admittedly subjective,
\ninterpretation. First of all, while the wages look good on
\npaper, they do not look half as good when one considers the
\nspiraling cost of basic necessities in Indonesia's major cities
\nover the last five or six years. But even middle class housewives
\ncan empathize with that. The fact is that the quality of life of
\nIndonesia's "proletariat" has scarcely improved, and that for a
\nworker with a family, a "living wage" is but a pipe-dream.<\/p>\n
Second, there is a deep sense of injustice which lies deep in
\nthe heart of many workers who are able to witness the
\nostentatiously lavish and consumeristic lifestyles of rich
\nJakartans and citizens of many other major cities. They may not
\nknow of conceptual tools that economists use to measure social
\ninequalities -- but they feel, live and breathe inequality in
\ntheir everyday life. And we are not just talking the tangible,
\nmaterial sorts of inequalities. The experience of the workplace
\nis one of powerlessness or at least gross inequality of power
\nbetween management and worker. The result is the many indignities
\noften suffered at the workplace.<\/p>\n
Third, as everyone that has lived in this country knows, what
\nlooks good on paper in Indonesia often is not so good in real
\nlife. For example, although there is supposed to be freedom of
\norganization, many workers talk about the immense difficulties of
\nsetting up a functioning labor organization at their workplace.
\nThey regularly complain that local bureaucrats make it hard for
\nthis to happen, or that management develops all kinds of reward
\nand punishment mechanisms to hinder genuine workplace organizing.<\/p>\n
Fourth, workers still do not feel that their formal rights
\noffer them real protection. Though I have encountered workers
\nthat relate stories of how military personnel come in to quash
\nany signs of labor unrest on behalf of management, many more have
\nrecently complained about hired goons and thugs. Sometimes more
\nbrutal than the military-proper, some of these hail from the
\n"youth organizations" -- or paramilitary groups -- linked to
\npolitical parties.<\/p>\n
More issues can be added to the arbitrary list above. Many
\nworkers from Indonesia's state-owned companies, for example, fear
\nthat privatization plans will cost them their jobs. Most of these
\nissues cannot be tackled easily -- and thus one cannot expect
\nlasting industrial peace to transpire overnight. Indeed they are
\nbut symptoms of deeper, more fundamental problems in Indonesian
\nsociety -- in which the voices of the poor have been marginalized
\nfor decades, and where the power of money and brute force still
\nspeaks much too loudly.<\/p>\n
The writer is also the author of Workers and the State in New
\nOrder Indonesia (London, Routledge 1997)<\/p>",
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