Minister blames autonomy for increased labor abuses
Ridwan Sijabat, Jakarta
Labor conditions in Indonesia have not improved, partly due to weak labor supervision following the poor implementation of regional autonomy, says Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea.
The minister conceded that many companies are infringing on core labor standards and labor norms in employing workers.
"Companies are employing workers for around ten hours a day, seven days a week, without any overtime pay or safety equipment, what they are paid is below the minimum wage. Meanwhile, employers discriminate on the basis of gender and labor exporters abuse workers even before they are sent overseas," he said when swearing in Marudin Simanihuruk as director-general for labor norm supervision at the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration here on Wednesday.
Nuwa Wea was referring to the recent report by U.S.-based Human Rights Watch on the rampant abuse of Indonesian migrants during both their recruitment and their employment in Malaysia. The Asian Labor Network on International Financial Institutions (ALNI) has also found rampant labor abuse in a World Bank- sponsored Bali infrastructure development project.
The ALNI's research found that workers were working seven hours to 10 hours a day, seven days a week, without the required safety equipment and social security insurance.
Nuwa Wea said the manpower ministry could no longer directly supervise labor conditions in the field, as in line with regional autonomy, which was implemented in 2000, labor conditions are supervised by regional administrations.
"The increasing number of labor strikes, disputes between workers and their employers and the infringement of core labor standards have been caused by weak supervision and the shortage of supervising staff," he said.
Regions have a total of 1,500 officers supervising around 14,000 companies nationwide. Moreover, only 900 of them are still effective, as the remaining 600 have already been given other jobs, he said, citing that ideally a supervisor should supervise 25 companies, but currently the number of companies they had to supervise was 150.
Meanwhile, Marudin said after the swearing-in ceremony, that the ministry had asked the President to again take up supervision authority in order to improve labor conditions at home.
"If regions are not able to assume supervision authority as stipulated by Law No. 13/2003 on labor, they should return it to the central government," he said, adding that many regions had ignored labor supervision in an attempt to attract as many foreign investors as possible.
He said his immediate tasks were to prepare supervision guidelines for all supervisors, to recruit and train new supervisors and to improve the supervision of expatriates working in Indonesia.
Poor supervision has also been blamed for rampant violence against Indonesian migrants employed overseas.
A nongovernmental organization recorded that the number of Indonesian workers killed during their employment overseas has increased from 21 in 2002 to 32 in 2003 and 20 from January to May, 2004, while the number of labor abuses has gone up from 87 in 2002 to 180 in 2003 and 120 from January to May 2004.