Employers call on govt to review new labor law

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) has urged the House of Representatives and the government to review the controversial new labor law before its enforcement in October.

Apindo Secretary-General Poerbadi Hardjoprajitno lashed out at the new law yesterday, saying it was "too emotional" in its threats of stiff sanctions against violating employers.

"The law presumes that the country's employers already have a bad record and image and, therefore, threatens stiff sanctions against them. But is that presumption really the case?"

Besides administrative sanctions, the law imposes between a six month and a four year jail sentence, or a fine of between Rp 50 million and Rp 400 million on employers found guilty of violations.

Poerbadi said such stiff sanctions would make small and medium-scale enterprises reluctant to do business while foreign investors would be deterred from investing in Indonesia.

"We regret that the government and the House did not anticipate such negative impacts when making the law," he told The Jakarta Post.

Employers violating a law must be punished, but the punishment should be educative and workable, he said without elaborating.

The House, which declined to amend the law, has defended the stiff sanctions as a means to press employers to respect worker rights.

"Legal sanctions in the old law were too light, making many employers prefer breaching the law rather than respecting worker rights," Marzuki Achmad, chairman of House Commission V covering labor issues, said in a hearing with Minister of Manpower Fahmi Idris last week.

The current law, issued in 1969, threatens violators with a maximum three-month jail sentence, or a fine of Rp 100,000.

So controversial is the new law that even labor unions and non-governmental organizations have opposed it.

They argue that the new law is restrictive for workers and hampers their ability to strike.

The new law was hurriedly deliberated by the government and the House at the end of last year.

Despite being in recess, the House continued deliberations on the law at several posh hotels in Jakarta.

It was later discovered that the deliberation was financed using at least Rp 3.1 billion in funds from social security company PT Jamsostek.

As the public outcry grew over the alleged misuse of funds, then minister of manpower Abdul Latief claimed that he had allocated the money under the instructions of then president Soeharto.

Poerbadi, also president of Poerbadi & Associates legal consultants, said Apindo was shocked at the speed in which the House was able to deliberate the bill.

"The House commission processed the bill in only three months. And its result is a controversial law," he said.

It was endorsed by the House in February, only a month before Latief completed his term as minister of manpower.

Poerbadi called on both the House and the government to hear the public outcry and postpone the law's enforcement.

"In this reform era, the government should make adjustments and should not forcefully impose an unpopular law. It is not only the government, but also employers, workers, labor unions and NGOs who have an interest in the law," he said. (rms)