Friction in FSPSI mounts as members trade threats

JAKARTA (JP): The ongoing friction in the government-backed Federation of Indonesian Workers Union (FSPSI) has escalated with the federation's central board and sectoral unions exchanging threats of sacking.

The union was set up in 1973, in a bid to control fierce unions, under the name of the Federation of All Indonesian Workers (FBSI). `Rebels' now say they want to break free from government intervention.

FSPSI Chairman Datuk Bagindo has warned that he will impose stiff sanctions against individuals in the sectoral trade unions who led a rebellion against members of the federation's executive board.

"Strict actions will be taken if the rebels ignore the written warnings we have given," he told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Ali Samioen, chairman of the trade union in the tourism sector, dismissed the warning, saying that all sectoral trade unions would call an extraordinary congress to sack the federation's executives for their failure to channel the sectors' aspirations. "We will set up our own confederation. We can exist with or without FSPSI," he said.

David CH, chairman of the trade union in the transportation sector, defied Datuk's warning and said the federation's executive board had no authority to intervene in sectoral unions' internal affairs, including imposing organizational sanctions.

Samioen and Hartono said that 11 of the existing 13 sectoral unions launched the rebellion "to reform the labor union" whose image is very poor among workers both at home and overseas.

"The current executive board is corrupt and dominated by politicians loyal to the government. Now, we want it to be independent and proactive in representing workers," David said.

He said there were 11 trade unions involved from the tourism, transportation, logging and forestry, electronics, plantation and agriculture, cigarette, food and beverage, textile, publishing and printing and energy sectors. The two opposing the rebellion, are the banking and public works sectoral trade unions.

Samioen acknowledged that FSPSI has yet to win the hearts of the majority of workers because it has no strong commitment to fight for their interests.

"Since it was founded in 1973, the labor union has been used by the ruling Golkar as a political tool and many of its officials come from Golkar-affiliated organizations such as Kosgoro and SOKSI," he said, citing that only around 13 percent of approximately 40 million workers have joined the labor union.

He also said that workers and sectoral trade unions were very disappointed with the executive board when it agreed with the government and the Association of Indonesian Employers (Apindo) last May not to raise monthly minimum wages.

Meanwhile, FSPSI Deputy Chairman Wilhelmus Bokha also expressed his disappointment with the central board and said that he would quit soon and establish a new federation in February. (rms)