Most transport workers yet to unionize

Most transport workers yet to unionize

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Minister of Manpower and Transmigration has called on
transportation workers to form a labor union in an attempt to
improve their bargaining position and working conditions.

"The majority of workers employed in support capacities in
ports, and air and land transportation are still underpaid, and
this has a lot to do with the fact that they are not unionized,"
he said in his keynote address during the opening ceremony for a
two-day Asia-Pacific regional committee meeting of the
International Transportation Federation here on Wednesday.

Nuwa Wea said that with the onset of reform in Indonesia and
following the ratification of ILO Convention No. 87 on freedom of
association, some 86 labor unions had been registered by the
government.

However, the labor movement had yet to bring about any
significant changes in working conditions as most of the labor
unions have been established by elite groups to defend their
political interests.

"Ideally, the labor movement should grow from the grassroots
level so that workers can take part actively in their unions'
programs to help improve their bargaining positions vis-a-vis
their employers. Besides, employers and investors will no longer
be able to compete with foreign competitors unless they enhance
cooperation and create harmonious industrial relations at the
shop floor level so as to improve their competitiveness," he
said.

Indonesian Seafarers Union (KPI) chairman Hanafie Rustandi
said in his country report to the meeting that most transport
workers were reluctant to join the existing labor unions because
the ineffectiveness of labor unions during former president
Soeharto's 32-year-long New Order regime and their active
involvement in pro-government politics.

"In the past, we had only a single All-Indonesian Workers
Union, and the labor movement was very weak. The officially
sanctioned union collected dues from workers but never accounted
for these. At present, there were many labor unions but they
failed to properly represent their members in negotiations with
the employers," he said.

He cited as an example the fact that only major shipping and
airline companies had signed collective labor accords with their
workers while millions of low-level workers in airline, bus and
shipping companies and ports were still not represented by a
labor unions nor signed collective labor accords and standards
with their employers.

The secretary-general of the London-based ITF, David Cockroft,
who also attended the meeting, called on all the delegates to the
meeting to design a program to enhance solidarity among transport
workers and union leaders in the region in facing the rapid
spread of globalization.

"All delegates to the meeting should design a joint program to
build and enhance solidarity among unions and transport workers
through the formulation of new labor standards on minimum wages,
documents and social security programs.

In addition, unions in the transportation sector should also
enhance partnerships and industrial relations with employers in
line with the implementation of the open-skies policy almost
everywhere around the world," he said.