Unions call for equal partnership in industry
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)