Govt to suspend labor supply to Mideast

Govt to suspend labor supply to Mideast

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government will temporarily suspend the sending of workers
to Middle Eastern countries in March in order to remedy poor
coordination and preparation, says an official.

Director General for Labor Export at the Ministry of Manpower
and Transmigration I Gusti Made Arke said here recently that the
government made the decision amid a disorganized system that
caused many workers to suffer various troubles in their workplace
overseas.

"During the month-long suspension, the government will fix the
recruitment system, training program and the sending process to
give certainty to both workers and their employers overseas. The
government is determined to ensure that labor exporters send only
workers who have the necessary documents, are well-trained for
their assigned job, can speak Arabic and are insured under a
commercial insurance scheme," he said.

Many Indonesian workers have encountered problems while
working in the Middle East for various reasons, including using
false identity cards, not having the necessary skills, and being
unable to speak Arabic.

The last case involved two women workers who were abducted by
an Iraqi militant group when they were on their way from Jordan
to the war-torn country. Indonesia has barred workers from
traveling to Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion of the country
a year ago.

Arke said further that the government had delivered diplomatic
notes to the Embassies of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman and
the United Arab Emirates in Jakarta to inform them of the
government's new decision.

Indonesia supplies between 15,000 and 20,000 workers per month
to the Middle East, who are mostly employed as domestic helpers
in Saudi Arabia.

Labor recruitment and export agencies have voiced their
support for the government's decision in the hope that the labor
export procedure in April would be much better than the present
one.

"The minister of manpower and transmigration should show
strong commitment to remedying the poor export mechanism by
taking harsh actions against subordinates who abuse their power
and against labor exporters who violate Law No. 39/2004 on labor
export," Secretary General of the Indonesian Employee Agency
Association (Idea) Djamal Aziz said.

Djamal also said the government should give a fair quota to
all labor exporters in accordance with their capacity to avoid
oversupply and maintain Indonesian workers' bargaining power.

"Indonesian workers' bargaining power has dropped to the
lowest level due to oversupply and the sending of unskilled
workers," he said, citing that the monthly salary of Indonesian
workers in Saudi Arabia had dropped to an average of 600 real (Rp
1.2 million) from between 800 and 1,000 real in the 1990s because
of oversupply.