Candidates uninterested in labor issues

Candidates uninterested in labor issues

Ridwan Max Sijabat
and Kurniawan Hari
Jakarta

Labor issues have been glaringly absent a week into the
presidential campaign, even though 45 million people are either
underemployed or unemployed.

The candidates have been generous in their promises to create
jobs and improve workers' welfare, but have offered no solutions
as to how they mean to achieve this; their campaign teams,
however, have been more forthcoming.

Bomer Pasaribu of the Wiranto-Solahuddin Wahid camp said they
would take an approach "combining" capitalism and socialism.

"We need a labor policy that promotes workers' rights and
simultaneously stimulates the investment climate," he told The
Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Muchtar Pakpahan of the Amien Rais-Siswono Yudohusodo camp,
meanwhile, said they would review the existing package of labor
legislation for potentially disruptive impacts on the harmony
between investors and workers.

"We have to learn from Japan, West Europe and South Korea on
how they are trying to establish a moderate labor system that
implements workers' rights while simultaneously encouraging
investment growth," he said.

The investment climate in Indonesia, he said, was relatively
favorable in regards labor partly because of its three pro-labor
laws: Freedom of association, industrial relations and labor
dispute settlements.

The campaign teams also stressed the importance of an
employment-based development economy to cope with unemployment.

Robik Mukav of the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-Jusuf Kalla camp
said workers' rights and global labor movement were not popular
issues during the campaign because they conflicted with the
team's economic and investment programs.

"We want to make some changes and achieve some progress in all
fields, but it is difficult to adopt a global labor movement
policy because the economy must be oriented toward growth and job
creation," he told the Post.

The labor law package has forced many foreign labor-intensive
companies to relocate to other countries and has delayed foreign
investment to Indonesia over the last five years.

The Megawati Soekarnoputri-Hasyim Wahid camp was upbeat that
they would be able to create 12.9 million new jobs in the next
five years by creating a more accommodating investment climate --
although they did not detail how -- and providing a soft-loan
credit scheme for small-scale entrepreneurs.

Elly Rasdiani, a strategist of the Hamzah Haz-Agum Gumelar
camp, said they would focus on improving the quality of human
resources by establishing more labor training centers and raising
the national education budget.

"A people-oriented economic policy cannot be implemented
unless the quality of human resources are improved, because
almost 70 percent of a 140 million-plus workforce are uneducated
or elementary school dropouts," she said.

Side-bar story

Labor exporters wait for perceptive leaders

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

Labor exporters and activists said on Tuesday that they regret
presidential candidates' lack of attention to improving the labor
condition and providing protection for Indonesian overseas
workers.

"This means the presidential candidates do not realize how
strategic labor export is," Association of Labor Export Companies
(Apjati) chairman Husein Alaydrus said.

About three million Indonesians work abroad, and have
collectively injected US$5.4 billion in fresh funds into the
economy over the last three years.

Labor exporters, he said, were waiting for a candidate with
programs to protect migrant workers and provide skills
development.

He added that violence against Indonesian migrant workers had
increased over the last three years mainly because of the
government's lack of commitment.

Salma Safitri, coordinator of Women's Solidarity, warned
against the reemergence of labor exploitation, judging from the
candidates' stressing employment-based economic programs.

"Indonesia will return to the New Order era, which gave more
attention to the inflow of foreign investment with its cheap-
labor policy, so that workers' rights were ignored and they were
underpaid," she said, and that market-friendly labor laws needed
to be reviewed and amended to help better the labor condition.

Arist Merdeka Sirait, another activist, said all candidates
appeared unfriendly to workers because they were "old faces" from
the past regime without commitment to the national reform agenda.