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)