Unions call for equal partnership in industry
JAKARTA (JP): Labor activists called on management to treat labor unions as equal partners in bipartite negotiations in an attempt to create mutually beneficial relations.
Muchtar Pakpahan, chairman of the Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI), maintained that the increasing wave of labor strikes over the last two years were in large part due to managements' ignorance of poor labor conditions.
"Industrial strikes have been the last resort for workers to fight labor oppression...Entering the reform era, workers have become more aware of their rights," he said in a seminar on business and labor on Thursday.
The daylong seminar which also featured local and foreign businessmen was jointly organized by the Castle Group and local media organizations Tempo, Gatra, Suara Pembaruan, The Indonesian Observer, Media Indonesia and The Jakarta Post.
Muchtar said that as we enter a period of reform, globalization and free-trade, both local and foreign investors and authorities can no longer treat workers as objects.
He claimed that many employers were still paying off government officials and security authorities in order to resolve internal disputes and strikes, instead of going to the negotiating table.
"I want to state here and now that Indonesia can no longer provide cheap labor for foreign investors," Muchtar asserted.
"Military and police intervention in labor disputes will never offer a permanent and peaceful solution," he added.
Muchtar also believed that workers' strikes in the past would not have become so violent, with acts involving the destruction of their workplaces, if they had been treated fairly and humanely at work in the first place.
"It would be better and more effective for employers to pay their workers a higher salary and invest in improving their skills and welfare rather than pay huge amounts of money to the government and military officials for their assistance," he said.
Dita Indah Sari, chairwoman of the National Front for Indonesian Workers Unity (FNPBI), expressed disappointment with the government and political parties which she claimed did not have a strong enough commitment to improving labor conditions.
Workers will continue to face a bleak future unless the government has the political commitment to enforce the law and create legal certainty, she said.
She claimed that many companies still pay workers below set minimum wages and often violate rules on annual leave, overtime payment, incentives, health facilities, bipartite negotiations and women workers' rights.
She further warned political parties that they should be more concerned with labor conditions if they wished to attract votes in the forthcoming election.
"Parties should bear in mind that 55 percent of voters in the last election were workers," she remarked.
Muhammad Rodja, secretary general of the Reformed All Indonesian Workers Union (SPSI Reformasi), called on political parties, the government, employers and labor unions to form an alliance to design regulations and programs to improve labor conditions.
"Without such an alliance future labor conditions will remain as bad as during the New Order era," he said.(rms)