Better skilled workers needed to anticipate trade liberalization
Better skilled workers needed to anticipate trade liberalization
JAKARTA (JP): Labor and business experts warn that unless
immediate action is taken, Indonesian workers won't be able to
withstand the liberalization of the flow of goods and services,
including labor, in the next century.
Businessman Arnold Baramuli, union leader Imam Sudarwo and
Yudo Swasono from the Ministry of Manpower, formed a chorus at a
seminar yesterday when calling for immediate action to make
Indonesian workers more productive and competitive.
Indonesia must improve the quality of its workers in order to
take full advantage of the free trade arrangements it is entering
into, Baramuli, who is also a member of the House of
Representatives, said.
He said the task of strengthening the Indonesian work force
falls largely on small and medium scale companies because they,
rather than the large companies, are expected to lead Indonesia
into the free trade era.
Failure to act now could leave Indonesia "a mere spectator in
the free competition," he said.
The one-day seminar was organized by Kosgoro, a cooperative
movement affiliated to the ruling political group Golkar. The
meeting also featured Saleh Alwaini, an executive of a company
which sends Indonesian workers abroad.
The seminar specifically discussed the challenges Indonesian
workers will face when the Asia-Pacific region phases in its free
trade arrangement in 2010.
Baramuli said Indonesia will not be able to compete in
capital-intensive and hi-tech industries now dominated by
advanced countries.
Indonesia's strength will be in small and medium scale
companies and they should be the ones to educate and train the
workers, he said.
This means that the government should continue to cultivate
the development of small and medium scale companies through more
deregulatory measures. Financial conditions, for one, need
restructuring to allow small and medium companies greater access
to credit facilities, he said.
Yudo warned that the obligatory liberalization measures under
the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) would be
expanded to include trade in services, and this means the
liberalization of the flow of workers.
He said Indonesia needs to strengthen the quality of its
workers in order to minimize the impact of the inflow of foreign
workers into the country.
GATT allows for some temporary relief measures but Indonesia
should be prepared to face the possible consequences of the full
enforcement of GATT by 2005, he said.
Under GATT's principles on the movement of labor, a country is
only allowed to set professional qualifications for foreign
workers as a way of limiting the inflow of workers.
Imam Sudarwo argued that the low quality and productivity of
Indonesian workers was caused not only by their poor education,
but also by low wages, lack of social security and restricted
freedom of association.
"In facing the free trade era, we should address these
problems," he said.
He said Indonesian industrial workers are among the lowest
paid in Asia, even lower than their counterparts in China.
An Indonesian worker earns an average of US$0.28 per hour, he
said. This is much lower than the minimum wage of $0.54 per hour
in China, $1.80 in Malaysia and $16.91 in Japan. (rms)