Labor suppliers' body beefs up skills-training
Labor suppliers' body beefs up skills-training
JAKARTA (JP): The newly-established Association of Indonesian Labor Suppliers plans to beef up skills-training programs for prospective Indonesian workers to balance the ratio between the number of unskilled and skilled workers at 1:1.
"This will be our short-term program. Our members will do everything. Not only send Indonesian workers abroad but also increase the proportion of skilled and semi-skilled workers," the association's Chairman Mahfudz Djaelani said yesterday.
The ratio, he said, complies with the regulation issued by the ministry of manpower last year. In the past, the ratio between unskilled workers -- which consists mainly of household maids -- and skilled workers sent abroad was one to four.
Speaking at the office of the ministry of manpower after installing the association's Executive Director Tri Herdono, Mahfudz said the policy would be applicable to all countries receiving the workers.
The association, which consists of 52 licensed companies, was established in March after the government received mounting reports on abuse of Indonesian workers abroad, committed by their employers and by the workers' labor-supplier companies.
Over the past couple of months, Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief has agreed to renew the operational permits of labor- suppliers, under tightened conditions.
These include the capability and willingness of the companies to abide by certain capital regulations and to provide training programs for unskilled workers before they are sent abroad.
The companies would also be closely monitored and their financial records regularly audited to ensure they remain fit to facilitate workers, who intend to find jobs overseas, and to avoid them from merely seeking profits.
The new rules were issued last August, to regulate the lucrative, yet highly disordered business of sending Indonesian workers overseas.
Up to date, the ministry has agreed to renew the operational licenses of only 52 of the 310 companies which have been compelled by the ministry to apply last year.
Mahfudz said that the association also intends to include the establishment of a special consortium dealing with labor issues overseas as one of its long-term programs, in line with the call from Minister Latief.
"We will try to establish cooperation with our labor attache abroad, so that, in the long run, workers' issues will be handled by both agencies," he said.
Latief, who attended the ceremony, considered that the presence of an executive director would help to keep association members away from only pursuing their own profit.
"A professional executive director must be able to implement, consistently, the policies established by the association's members. He must also give a report on this to association members," Latief said.
The government estimates that Indonesia needs at least 300 manpower supplier companies to be able to export about 1.5 million workers in the next five years.
The government has received mounting pressure to issue more operational licenses to meet this target, given the potential foreign exchange earnings from sending workers abroad, but Latief has said that he would remain cautious. (pwn)