Muchtar Pakpahan tries again to win workers' support

Anton Doni, Head, Research and Development Unit, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Freedom of expression following the fall of the New Order government led to unprecedented strikes among civil servants, employees at state-owned companies, bank employees and other white-collar workers. Unions popped up everywhere, finally joining those developed since the 1980s in the manufacturing sector and others among blue-collar workers.

So far only a few political parties seem to have used this potential for new activism, such as the Indonesian Association Party (PSI) relying on the network of unions (Gaspermindo) led by its founder and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) whose activists are seen among those advocating for the desperate workers of state-owned aircraft manufacturer PT Dirgantara Indonesia.

Less prominent on the scene is the party of Muchtar Pakpahan -- the country's labor movement icon. He founded the Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI) in 1992 in the days when only one union was allowed.

SBSI activists were often harassed and Pakpahan was imprisoned in August 1994 after leading demonstrations in Medan, North Sumatra. Workers had protested mass dismissals amid demands of an investigation into the death of a worker at a rubber company.

As an expression of support for the suppressed labor movement, Pakpahan gained several international awards. In 1997 alone, he secured three, including one from the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO). Even former United States' president Bill Clinton had urged Pakpahan's release from prison.

Now Pakpahan leads the Social Democratic Labor Party (PBSD) declared on May 1, 2001 as the political arm of the Confederation of the Indonesian Prosperity Labor Union (F-SBSI). It is a party with its origins in the former National Labor Party (PBN) which flopped in the 1999 polls with a mere 0.13 percent or 140,980 votes. Two other workers' parties also gained equally insignificant votes.

Thus, increased boldness among workers to unionize across more sectors than before, did not automatically translate into support for a political party originating from the renowned SBSI.

After the New Order, under which labor activists were always threatened with the stigma of being communists and the threat of losing their jobs, the setting up of new unions was already a big step forward. Affiliation with parties would take a higher, rare level of trust in politicians -- even within the F-SBSI, Pakpahan's PBN was only able to secure the support of 10 percent of the federation's membership.

Pakpahan himself faded from the limelight along with other reformist figures. Worse, he was implicated in a scandal involving social security funds (Jamsostek).

The results of the upcoming polls will indicate how far Pakpahan and his colleagues have been able to learn what went wrong and strengthen the leadership, the organization's solidity and drive and mainly its appeal to workers.

At least one clear lesson expected from the leadership is its ability to control internal squabbles that occurred in SBSI, the party's parent organization supposedly based on "class consciousness" and solidarity.

The party now seems eager to consolidate support from its networks of 11 unions in 28 provinces, spread throughout the manufacturing, transportation, mining and energy, construction, trading and banking sectors in some 1,500 companies. Manufacturing and transportation are the party's strongest sectors, from where most of its 1.7 million individual members come.

An early sign of bad luck is that PBSD was the party with the most legislative candidates disqualified by the General Elections Commission (KPU).

Pakpahan said he expects total support from the membership of the F-SBSI, but estimates that 10 percent of the members might not vote for his party.

The party's overall potential "market" lies in the country's 25 million workers according to the 2002 figures of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS). These include 10.5 million production workers, 4.3 million clerical workers, and 2.1 million agricultural workers.

Perhaps given the party's weaknesses and the legacy of the New Order, Pakpahan himself is realistic. No workers' party nowadays would be able to come anywhere near the achievements of the banned Indonesian Communist Party, which came fourth in the 1955 elections with 15.4 percent of votes.

There are now 83 labor unions but only 11 are under F-SBSI. Some others are more attracted to parties that workers can identify with more closely, such as those based on religion, rather than an inexperienced party claiming to represent them.

The provinces where PBSD is fairly optimistic of its chances are North Sumatra, Jambi, Riau, West Java, Jakarta, Banten, East Kalimantan, and North Sulawesi.

The party retains Pakpahan's long struggle for freedom of association as it perceives that the labor movement still faces many challenges. However it recognizes the stress on productivity repeatedly raised by the government and the business circle, as reflected in its goal for "peaceful industrial relations" to create "a conducive climate for investment."

The party's long list of goals also reflect its social democratic label, aiming for the state to provide access for all to education, housing programs and unemployment benefits.

Sources of funding, the party booklet says, would include recovered money stolen from state coffers and increasing government shares in contracts related to the exploitation of natural resources.

At least it has worked out where all the money would come from. For all those social democrat advocates, the scholar Anthony Giddens has this reminder: "Political life is nothing without ideas, but ideas are empty if they don't relate to real possibilities".