Workers' freedom

Authorities in this country showed a stubborn reluctance to recognize workers' rights right up until President B.J. Habibie signed up to the International Labor Organization (ILO) convention on June 5. The convention guarantees workers the freedom to organize.

Under Soeharto, the authorities cut back workers rights and the police clamped down heavily on underground unions and any signs of labor unrest. This policy seems to have been spurred by the ghost of the communist labor union, which haunted former president Sukarno's government right up until the Indonesian Communist Party was banned in 1965. Left-wing unions were so strong and so well-organized that they were able to disrupt many important social and economic activities and mentally terrorize anti-Communist groups.

However, the subsequent emasculation of workers' activities was lamented as a national disaster, not only by many people at home, but also by democratic countries around the world. Under the clampdown on unions authorities curtailed the workers' right to strike, a ban which lasted right up until five years ago. The lengthy absence of this basic freedom from the country's labor relations perhaps goes some way toward explaining why today's minimum monthly wage in the Jakarta area stands at a meager Rp 172,000 (US$13), far too small to provide for even the most basic of basic needs.

To compound the difficulties faced by workers, certain agencies with no responsibility for labor relations saw to it that they became involved in every labor dispute, and often used force and aggression to do so. In circumstances such as these, Marsinah, a female labor activist, was mysteriously tortured and murdered in East Java in 1993, in a case which attracted worldwide attention. Police had forgotten about this case until last week, when the reform movement vociferously reminded them of their duty to track down those involved in the murder.

Workers' conditions did not even improve in the final years of Soeharto's government after the Cold War had come to an end and the specter of communism was no longer a threat. They continued to be denied the right to set up their own unions, and the government-backed All-Indonesia Workers Union Federation (FSPSI) did nothing to defend their interests, indeed employers representatives often formed the leadership of that ineffectual organization.

In April 1992 a group of activists set up the independent Indonesian Prosperous Labor Union (SBSI). It was banned by the government two years later and many of its active members, including chairman Muchtar Pakpahan, were persecuted. Pakpahan was later jailed by a kangaroo court. He was released last week.

Workers are always the first and worst casualties in any social or economic crisis. The hardship which they suffer is comparable only to that of peasant farmers, who are at the mercy of those in the government who set the price for their crops.

However, for those who wish to see an improvement in the lot of this country's workers there is cause for optimism. President B.J. Habibie has signed up to the ILO convention on workers' rights to organize, and the House of Representatives will shortly debate, with a view to ratifying, conventions on migrant workers, discrimination in employment, and minimum wages. These will all help to return basic rights to our workers and strengthen their bargaining position, an essential move given that over 50 percent of our 90 million workforce is now underemployed.

Providing workers with a better deal will improve our image abroad -- an image that has frequently been tarnished by the mistreatment of workers, both in the country and overseas. In the words of Minister of Manpower Fahmi Idris: "Up until now we have been regarded as a country which does not support the protection of human rights and fails to give freedom to our workers."