Mutual understanding key to ending labor rows

Mutual understanding key to ending labor rows

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Rachmat, a middle-aged man, feels that his life is currently
in limbo. He recently lost his job at a garment factory, located
in the outskirts of Jakarta.

His sad story dates back to January this year, as his labor
union demanded a salary hike, pushing the employer to meet the
demand by February at the latest.

Following a series of strikes, the employer finally agreed to
meet the demands, promising to raise wages and settle back pay by
June this year.

Due to the workers' failure to agree among themselves, they
finally rejected the offer and decided to go on with the strike.

In an unexpected move, the company ceased operations in March,
the employer reportedly fleeing to Taiwan, claiming that he was
unable to meet the workers' demands.

Rachmat stated that, as time went by, he finally accepted the
reality of losing his job. However, in another way, he still
regretted they way in which it had happened.

"If we hadn't pushed the employer too much, we might not have
lost our jobs," said Rachmat, who was currently forced to do
whatever he could to meet his family's basic needs.

Such an experience portrays precisely the dilemma that is
being faced here by both workers and employers alike.

On the one hand, workers fight for improved conditions, while
on the other, employers try to minimize their labor costs.

Mutually agreed settlements are rarely achieved, resulting in
widespread labor protests around the country, especially during
the reform era.

The large number of labor protests is not at all surprising,
because workers here have yet to earn a decent income.

The minimum wage for workers is around US$ 35 per month on
average, the lowest in Asia, after Bangladesh.

Moreover, in practice, many workers are paid even less than
the government-set regional minimum wage.

In Jakarta, for example, shop workers are usually paid about
Rp 300,000 to Rp 400,000 per month, far below Jakarta's regional
minimum wage of Rp 592,000.

However, employers seem to take a different line to defend
their policy of paying minimal salaries to their workers.

Marketing manager of Samsung Electronics Lee Kang Hyun
complained that the economic downturn had diminished companies'
ability to pay a decent income to workers.

Businessman Djimanto agreed, saying that employers had
carefully calculated the capacity of their companies to pay their
workers.

"If the increase in labor costs is unbearable, employers will
be driven out of business and this could result in further
unemployment," warned Djimanto, also secretary general of the
Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo).

Industrial relocation, obliquely referred to at the beginning
of this story, is another threat that is often spoken about and
appears to be carried out by employers.

Data on business relocations is not available, but many
reports have shown that some companies operating in Indonesia
have relocated their factories to labor-friendly countries such
as Vietnam.

However, various parties in Indonesia have lashed out at the
employers, who have always tried to magnify contentious issues to
curb labor protests.

Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea bluntly
said that the issue was merely manipulated by employers for their
own interests.

He said that he visited Vietnam recently, but he had not found
any companies, formerly operating in Indonesia, which had
relocated their industries to Vietnam. "The only factory that
relocated to Vietnam was the one belonging to Sudono Salim, which
employs 126 workers," said Jacob recently.

Labor activist Dita Indah Sari echoed Jacob's statement,
saying that the relocation process was costly and not easily
achieved.

In order to strike a delicate balance in this contentious
issue, labor expert Fauzi Abdullah proposed that both parties
should allow the tripartite agency, the Labor Disputes Settlement
Committee (P4P), deal with their cases.

He said that the committee was very useful in helping to
settle industrial relations disputes.

However, the effectiveness of the committee to deal with
problems needed to be improved, he said on Wednesday.

One thing that ought to be eradicated was the widespread
collusion between government officials on the committee and
employers, resulting in workers' interests being ignored, he
said.

Lee Kang Hyun said that mutual understanding between both
parties was essential to end disputes.

"The companies must be transparent in financial matters, and
workers should not make unreasonable demands.

"Should that be the case, mutual trust between both sides
could prevail," he said.