Employers-workers relationship

Employers-workers relationship

People who lived during the Dutch colonial times used to refer
to unskilled laborers as contractual kuli. The relationship
between employers and laborers, however, was not set out in a
contract. It was a relationship that was peculiar to the
colonizers and the colonized people, who were subjected to the
regulations made by the colonial rulers.

Generally, the colonial rulers imposed regulations on the
colonized people, for example plantation laborers, in favor of
the colonizers so that they could get the most out of the
colonized people. The colonial rulers didn't care a jot about the
welfare of the colonized people.

Unfortunately, this relationship can still be found today,
between employers and workers, or between state/government
institutions and semi-permanent government employees, like
substitute teachers, seasonal clerks etc.

In the private sector, for example in the textile industry, an
employee can loose their job because their contract has finished.
Or, this can happen because the company gets few orders or goes
bankrupt.

The situation is different, however, in the case of civil
servants, such as members of the Indonesian Military and members
of the National Police, with reference to Law No. 43/1999 on
civil servants.

It has long been observed that dedication and services
rendered in accordance to a working contract in the area of state
apparatuses tend to mean very little, partly due to the weak
built-in control in state agencies.

SUNGKOWO SOKAWERA, Bandung