Ministry plans suspension of autonomy in labor field

Ministry plans suspension of autonomy in labor field

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In response to increased complaints, the manpower and
transmigration ministry has proposed taking over from the regions
certain authorities in the field of labor.

Manpower and transmigration minister Jacob Nuwa Wea said he
had asked the regions to return the authority over labor
inspections, labor dispute mediation and labor training to help
improve general labor conditions.

"Despite this being the era of reform, labor conditions have
remained poor mainly because of the weak enforcement of the labor
laws and a lack of political commitment by the government in
general to improve worker welfare," he said during the closing
ceremony for the national meeting of the Association of
Indonesian Industrial Relation Dispute Mediators here on
Wednesday.

Nuwa Wea said that entering the fourth year of regional
autonomy, labor inspections of industrial areas and small and
medium-scale factories remained weak because most inspectors had
been moved to jobs outside their areas of expertise.

"The merger of 26 local offices into 12, including the offices
for labor, transmigration and social affairs, caused regional
administrations to cut the number of labor inspectors and labor
dispute mediators and move them into jobs outside their own
competence.

"We had 1,300 labor inspectors who were specially trained for
nine months in 2000, but that number has been reduced to about
600 because most of them have been moved and promoted to other
jobs or positions. We also had 1,500 certified mediators in 2000
but their number now is 800, and as a consequence many labor
disputes cannot be settled in a tripartite forum because of the
shortages of mediators," he said.

He said several of the 49 vocational training centers in the
regions had closed their doors and many instructors and certified
trainers had resigned because provincial and regency
administrations showed little concern for the issue of training
workers.

Several provinces and regencies have already offered to allow
the manpower ministry to take control of certain labor issues,
but this has not yet been approved by President Megawati
Soekarnoputri.

"We have coordinated with the home minister and the minister
for administrative reform to allow the manpower ministry to take
over certain labor issues until the regions are ready to handle
these issues," Nuwa Wea said.

The director general for industrial relations at the manpower
and transmigration ministry, Musni Tambusai, who accompanied Nuwa
Wea to the ceremony, said the increasing number of labor
disputes, strikes and public complaints over poor labor
conditions in factories was partly the result of the excesses of
regional autonomy.

"According to our records, only 30 percent of industrial
disputes can be settled at the bipartite and tripartite levels,
while 70 percent go to the local and central committees for labor
dispute settlements (P4Ds and P4P), causing many industrial
disputes to be held up in the P4P for years," he said.

He said the P4P, which is scheduled to be disbanded by the end
of this year, has a backlog of more than 4,500 cases, which it is
unlikely to hear by the end of December.

Law No. 2/2004 on the settlement of industrial disputes will
take effect in January, allowing both workers and employers to
take disputes to a labor court and the Supreme Court.

With the new law, both employers and workers will be allowed
to go to government mediators, conciliators or arbitrators within
30 days if they fail to resolve a dispute at the bipartite level.
If they fail to reach a peaceful settlement, both sides are then
allowed to go to the labor court and appeal to the Supreme Court,
in a process meant to ensure all industrial disputes are settled
within three months.

Musni said his directorate was recruiting about 800 new law
school graduates to be trained as mediators and stationed in
industrial zones and regencies and mayoralties over the next five
years.

"For the time being, we will depend on the existing mediators
to mediate industrial disputes, and many cases for the first
years will go to the labor court while we are training new
mediators. But our main program is to help encourage employers
and workers and labor unions to create better labor conditions so
that disputes between workers and employers can be settled at the
bipartite or tripartite level," he said.