BPJS Ketenagakerjaan Partners with WISPO, Cooperatives to Act as Protectors for Workers
BPJS Ketenagakerjaan is encouraging cooperatives to take on a new role as a strategic channel in expanding employment social security protection, specifically for workers along the plantation industry supply chain. This collaborative model is believed to be capable of accelerating membership expansion while strengthening worker welfare through synergy between the government, the business world, and cooperatives.
This idea emerged during the WISPO Impact Series #1, titled “Employee Cooperatives as a New Source of Worker Welfare,” organised by Worker Initiatives for Sustainable Palm Oil (WISPO) in Jakarta on Thursday. The forum brought together BPJS Ketenagakerjaan, the government, business actors, trade unions, cooperative administrators, academics, and various stakeholders to formulate the strengthening of the cooperative’s role as part of the worker protection ecosystem.
The Chairman of the Supervisory Board of BPJS Ketenagakerjaan, Dedi Hardianto, emphasised that expanding worker protection requires a collaborative approach. According to him, the state cannot work alone to reach all workers, especially non-wage earners scattered across various sectors.
“Worker protection cannot be built by a single institution. It requires mutually strengthening collaboration between the government, BPSK Ketenagakerjaan, the business world, and cooperatives. With its proximity to worker communities, cooperatives have great potential to become a channel for expanding protection to workers along the plantation industry supply chain,” said Dedi.
Dedi noted that the primary strength of cooperatives lies in their closeness to their members. Social capital in the form of trust, networks, and the spirit of mutual cooperation serves as the foundation for providing broader and more sustainable social security protection.
“Cooperatives should no longer only function as economic drivers for their members. Moving forward, cooperatives must be able to act as a bridge that brings social security protection closer to workers. When protection is provided through institutions that are close to and trusted by the community, membership expansion will occur more quickly, effectively, and sustainably,” he asserted.
The forum also highlighted the importance of transforming cooperatives to be more modern, professional, transparent, and digitally-based. Such strengthening is considered key so that cooperatives no longer merely perform economic functions for their members, but also evolve as channels for expanding BPJS Ketenagakerjaan membership through their existing networks and ecosystems.
In line with this, representing the Minister of Cooperatives of the Republic of Indonesia, the Deputy for Institutional and Digitalisation of Cooperatives, Henra Saragih, stated that the transformation of cooperatives into modern, professional, transparent, and digital-based organisations is a prerequisite for cooperatives to meet the challenges of the evolving world of work.