Minister pledges speedy labor dispute settlement
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
To rectify past mistakes when resolution of labor disputes could take years to complete, Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea vowed on Thursday that the bill on industrial dispute settlement currently being deliberated by the House of Representatives would produce a speedy outcome.
Nuwa Wea said that there was no way the current labor dispute settlement process could be maintained due to the many shortcomings in the existing regulations and corrupt officials.
Under the current mechanism, the process could take up to six years before any legal decision was produced. Judges who sit on the committee are also reportedly notorious for extorting employers who are implicated in disputes with their workers.
The minister said that under the new law, industrial disputes on dismissals could be settled first through a bipartite forum. However, if no resolution was reached, a mediator or councillor could be brought in within 40 days.
"If it fails, the dispute could be brought to the labor court and a verdict has to be issued after 50 working days," Nuwa Wea told a seminar on labor dispute settlement.
He was quick to add that an appeal could be made no later than 14 days after the verdict was issued.
The government and the House are currently deliberating a bill on the settlement of labor disputes that will replace the regional and central committees with an ad-hoc labor court. The bill is to replace Laws No. 12/1964 and No. 22/1957 on the settlement of industrial disputes.
The DPR is expected to endorse the bill on Sept. 23 during its plenary session.
After the demise of the authoritarian regime of president Soeharto, infamous for suppressing labor movements, workers began to better organize themselves through unions. the strengthening of the trade unions has at times increased tensions between employers and workers.
A report from the manpower ministry in 2002 recorded 220 labor strikes, a rise from 194 the previous year.
The director of the Jakarta Office of the International Labor Organization (ILO), Alan Boulton, shared the minister's view, saying that the committees for dispute resolution which operate at the national and provincial level were no longer effective and in urgent need of reform and replacement.
He said Indonesia needed to develop sound and effective mechanisms to resolve industrial disputes cheaply, quickly and fairly.
"However, it is up to the Indonesian government on how to go about doing this and what shape the system should be," he told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the seminar.
He said that after the endorsement of the bill the government must prepare a real and workable labor court.
"The government will have to single out judges that have integrity and make sure that they are all well paid," he said.