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.