Labor problems 'due to same old system'

Labor problems 'due to same old system'

JAKARTA (JP): Is workers staging strikes at the House of
Representatives or Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration day
after day a good sign of people asserting their newly-found
freedom of expression? Carmello C. Noriel at the Jakarta office
of the International Labor Organization (ILO) thinks not.

The collapse of Soeharto's New Order regime might have brought
about positive developments, such as the 1999 ratification of the
trade union act, but freedom of expression is not enough to
relieve workers from their suffering, he said.

Rather than having to deal with the weaknesses of only one
union (the SPSI, which was strongly controlled by Soeharto),
workers now have at least 14 worker unions, but that has not
materialized greater opportunities for the protection of their
interests.

That is because two other bills -- on dispute settlement and
manpower development, replacing the old Manpower Act -- have yet
to be ratified.

"Three years and the laws have not yet been ratified. I don't
know whether (it's because of) slowness, lack of concentration,
confusion or competing priorities," he said.

What is clear is that now more people are complaining about
the presence of too many unions which are not contributing to the
betterment of the workers' conditions.

"You have created unions, but the old attitude and bureaucracy
are still the same," Noriel said in a recent interview assessing
the employment crisis, which occurred after the 1997 economic
meltdown.

Noriel quoted a local official who revealed that labor
disputes in 2000 doubled those of 1999, citing highly visible
cases such as the strike of Shangri-La Hotel workers or those of
PT Kadera in Jakarta.

Dispute settlement becomes an impossibility when even the
question of representation cannot be answered. The standing
tripartite formula -- which involves representatives of the
workers, employers and government -- is difficult to implement
because there is more than one trade union representing the
workers. Meanwhile the SPSI is still actually listed in the old
membership.

"The logical thing would be to institute a law that encourages
collective bargaining and negotiation with employers to prevent
problems and solve disputes quickly," Noriel said. "Later on you
must establish an arbitration court which is streamlined, fair
and very fast. No monkey business."

"That is the way to do it so the workers are satisfied, both
workers and employers respect (the court's) decisions, and you
can have a smooth-running dispute settlement system," he said.

Noriel spoke of ILO Jakarta's plan to launch on May 1,
coinciding with International Labor Day, a 24-month project in
six provinces promoting sound labor relations in Indonesia by
helping the three parties (government, employers and unions)
increase their ability to implement the new labor legislation.

The specific target groups in government will be the labor
officers working at the district, provincial and headquarters
level, charged with the management of labor administrations which
include conciliators, mediators and labor inspectors.

Other government target groups will be industrial judges and
tripartite laymen and women, as well as senior officials at the
Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, the Ministry of Justice
and Human Rights, and the National Development Planning Board.

The project will also target legislators to maintain the
momentum for labor law reform and facilitate the full
implementation of the new labor laws and regulations, Noriel
said.

Among the employers and workers, leadership at the apex and
grassroots level will be the targeted. The actors in bipartite
institutions, like the work councils at the shop-floor level,
negotiating councils at the enterprise level and other forms of
labor management consultation and cooperation, as well as
tripartite institutions, will be targeted.

The six provinces chosen for the program are Jakarta, West
Java, East Java, North Sumatra, Riau and East Kalimantan. The
project will have offices in Jakarta, Surabaya, Samarinda, Medan
and Batam.

How much does the absence of good labor management contribute
to the fact that Indonesia has yet to emerge from the crisis?

"How come the laws of the old regime are still maintained
until now? They must be reformed, that must be the first
priority," Noriel said.

"Of course people say: 'we are more democratic now'. But ask
anybody if they are really clear (about the extent of democratic
reform)?

"What is more democratic about the labor policy now? How are
people implementing it? Labor management is affected by the
political and economic situation of the country -- not many
companies are opening up, companies are downsizing and even
closing down. These factors all contribute to labor unrest unless
they are managed well," he said.

Noriel suggests that Indonesia may have got its priorities
wrong by ratifying the trade union act before the bills on
working standards and protection, and collective bargaining.
(swe)