Introduction
The following discussion was written based on
interviews conducted by Jurnal Bersatu (Journal of
Unity) editorial staff with a number of people’s
organisations. The spectrum and “political
groupings” along with the sectors and class of
organisation were several of the considerations in
the choice of the groups that were interviewed.
Nevertheless there were two organisations – the
People’s Movement Alliance for Agrarian Reform
(AGRA) and the United People’s Party (PPR) who on
the eve of the publication of this journal were
unable to be interviewed.
Labour organisations
Lqbal, President of the Indonesian Metal Trade
Workers Federation (FSPMI).
In terms of issues, the labour situation post-
Suharto has not changed much. In terms of
implementation, it is worse now than during the
Suharto era. In terms of concept, currently there
are both positive and negative aspects. For example,
the articles on outsourcing in Law Number 13/2003 on
Labour can be used to eliminate outsourcing in
companies where SPMI members are working, by
changing SPMI workers who are affected by
outsourcing through labour contractors who do not
have a work relationship with the job provider
becoming contract employees, but it can also be
interpreted as being in accordance with the
employer’s interests in justifying outsourcing.
The principle issues facing labour
The FSPMI leadership meeting held on February 5-7,
2008 decided that there were four main issue facing
the labour movement: 1) amending Law Number 3/1992
on Jamsostek (state-run workers insurance scheme);
2) changing the regulations on contract employees
and opposing outsourcing 3) a decent national wage;
and 4) supervision, which tends not to function
because of the regional autonomy process.
The current state of the labour movement
Objectively, there is an opportunity to increase
consciousness within the labour movement because,
first, the law has already provided the space for
this, and secondly, the strong desire to join a
trade union. Nevertheless there is a weakness, the
large number of trade unions at the moment – there
are 98 federations, three confederations and 146
national trade unions – making it easy for the
labour movement to be disunited. In addition to
this, political consciousness, with regard to the
danger of the law on foreign investment for example,
is also not very high.
Labour movement unity
Labour movement unity is a permanent necessity
because the working class faces the same issues. The
working class itself already understands the need
for this unity. But this unity cannot be only based
on momentum, but rather must be sustainable, so that
the working class has a strong bargaining power both
against the government as well as the movements.
There are four main obstacles to labour movement
unity in Indonesia. First, the majority of attempts
at labour unity have been driven by outside parties,
such as non-government organisations (NGOs) or the
government, for their own interests, so that when
their needs are fulfilled, these outside parties
then seek a new format. This obstacle will disappear
if and when unity is driven by the permanent needs
of the working class and organised by workers
themselves. Secondly, there are differences.
Structural unity of all federations or trade unions
is an impossibility. What can be undertaken is
cultural unity, like a non-aligned movement, where
unity is based on a similarity of interests and
issues. Attempts at this kind of unity have actually
already been undertaken, but have met failure,
because they were structured in a premature fashion,
so when there was a section that was not part of the
structure, they felt uncomfortable. Third, financing
must not depend on an outside party, that way it
will not be constrained by the interests of the
party providing the funds. Fourth, although the
labour movement cannot be active at the same level
as national political figures, initially, there is a
need to involve figures that have significant
influence in the individual federations.
Although the labour movement needs to involve
broader layers of society, it must still have its
nucleus in the movement. In Sweden for example, out
of its millions of people, only two hundred thousand
people are organised, who continue to develop the
values of social justice.
Aims of the struggle
The final goal of the Indonesian people, including
the labour movement within it, is a welfare state.
In order to move in such a direction it is necessary
to do so in stages. First, a collective
consciousness must be built that workers are a part
of the mainstream of the nation and the country’s
life, so that laws and government polices must
include the interests of labour. In order to build
this collective consciousness, workers must
strengthen the movement and organise the masses in
even larger numbers. Here, unity and contributions
are also important. Second, social security is
important in moving towards a welfare state, because
it is impossible to have good investment without
social justice and social security. Certainly
Indonesia already has Jamsostek, but the working
class has not been part of this.
Jamsostek itself has quite a significant potential.
Jamsostek currently has only covers around 25
percent of the work force, that is 8.1 million
workers, and already amounts to some 54.4 trillion
rupiah, whereas according to the National Statistics
Agency (BPS) the potential participants in Jamsostek
are 33 million or 26.8 million in 2007 according to
the Department of Labour. If all workers were
obliged to join Jamsostek, the amount could reach
200 trillion rupiah. Similarly, if severance pay
reserves were taken out of the companies’ coffers,
the total would be almost 268 trillion rupiah and if
pension fund insurance was operated properly, the
total would be almost 500 trillion rupiah. If all of
this was consolidated, the total would be almost
1,000 trillion. If this operated properly, the
government whose annual budget deficit in 2008 was
89 trillion rupiah would no longer need the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the World
Bank. The government could spend funds from these
social security institutions on development and
covering the deficit. But this of course would
require tight control and the money would have to be
returned to workers and the public in the form of
free education, healthcare and so forth.
The free market polices that are currently in place
are a consequence of a state administration that has
no character or ideology. The leadership style in
Indonesia at the moment is transactional in
character, meaning it is only able to negotiate. One
of the consequences of this, is that the concepts of
social justice that already exist in the 1945
Constitution have been lost through amendments, that
are then degraded in various laws such as the law on
capital investment and so on. But also we cannot
avoid the tide of capitalism and globalisation. What
is important is how to create social justice in the
flow of investment that enters the country. Here is
needed a leadership with a character and ideology.
Political parties
The formation of a labour party is one of the
choices for labour to struggle for its political
goals. But this must be proceeded by a process of
consensus building. First of all, the majority of
trade unions and elements concerned with the workers
movement must hold a convention to discuss whether
it is important to have a labour party. Such a
convention would not be to make a decision, so it
should produce a kind of small team to hold a
referendum among workers – and if it is not possible
to include all workers, then it could just be those
workers that are organised. If through such a
referendum, the majority agree to a party, the team
would then report this to the convention, which
would then discuss the issue and decide on the
establishment of a party. After there is a party,
even if in its political work it receives support
from trade unions, the trade unions must remain
independent, for example, a person who holds a
position in the party cannot hold a position on a
trade union. With regard to previous party building
attempts such as Papernas, and so forth, the
weakness was that it was not done through a large
meeting conceived by collective consciousness,
whereas this collective consciousness needs to be
built first and this is why a sustainable cultural
movement becomes important.
The 2009 elections
There are three ways for the working class to
struggle for its political interests. First, by
entrusting the concept with the existing political
parties. This is difficult because there are
currently no parties that can be expected to
struggle for this concept. Second, by placing trade
union people in a political party. This requires
training, because there is no guarantee that the
people that are place in the party will take up the
interests of their trade union. Third, by
establishing their own political party to take up
the interests of workers.
With regard to the 2009 general elections, the
working class could: 1) elect, if they exits,
workers who want to enter the parliament, regardless
of their party; and 2) side with parties that
declare that they wish to take up workers’
interests. On this second option, it is indeed
difficult to differentiate between parties that are
serious and those that are just talk, but this
represents a form of training. If workers are unable
to channel their political interests through the
2009 elections, there is still an opportunity in
2014, but this must be accompanied with hard work
organising collective consciousness, through a large
meeting and a referendum, to reach an agreement on
whether there is a need for a labour party or not.