Minister blames autonomy for increased labor abuses

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.