New bill on right to form unions passed

New bill on right to form unions passed

JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives on Monday
unanimously passed a new bill on the rights of workers to
unionize.

Minister of Manpower Bomer Pasaribu and legislators separately
said that the law gives more assurance to workers' rights to
organize compared to previous laws.

In a departure from previous policies, civil servants are now
explicitly given the right to unionize. The law also mandates the
government to issue a new regulation on the establishment of
unions by civil servants. For decades they were obligated to join
the Indonesian Civil Servants' Corps (Korpri), which is not a
union.

Speaking at a House plenary session, Bomer said the new law
also guarantees freedom for those who do not want to join unions,
in line with the 1948 Convention on the Freedom of Association of
the International Labor Organization.

"The guarantee of freedom of association is reflected in the
simple requirements to form a union, which is the need for only
10 workers," Bomer said. Past regulations require at least 25
workers to form one union.

The law also states that one of the functions of a union is to
organize, execute, and be accountable for workers' strikes.

An earlier ministerial decree defined unions as organizations
which channel members' aspirations and that they are "a partner
of management and government in building harmonious industrial
relations based on principles of Pancasila."

Critics earlier said the guarantee of the right to strike was
missing in the draft of the bill.

The law states that dissolution of a union could be done by
its members, by the closure of the company, or by a court order.
The court could move to dissolve a union if it was considered to
have endangered security as defined in the Criminal Code.

Romawati Sinaga of the National Front for Indonesian Workers
Struggle, which is preparing a joint statement to reject the
bill, said only members should be allowed to dissolve a union.

Bomer said that "there should be no concerns about this
because the prerequisites for a court to disband a union are very
limited, namely when the union has committed a crime against the
state."

The law also covers the establishment of federations, formed
by at least five unions, and confederations, comprised of at
least three federations. The structure of such unions are
determined by their respective statutes.

A worker may only be a member of one union in one company.
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