Pre-May Day Demonstrations

Okezone, translated into English by the Indoleft News Service, has this report of pre-May Day demonstration by Aliansi Buruh Menggugat (ABM) and Serikat Pekerja Kereta Api Jakarta [Greater Jakarta Railway Workers Trade Union] (SPKAJ):

In the lead up to the commemoration of International Labour Day or May Day, the Workers Challenge Alliance (ABM) and the Greater Jakarta Railway Workers Trade Union (SPKAJ) are planning massive actions in Jakarta on May 1.  As part of the preparations for May Day, the groups held a protest action at the University of Indonesia (UI) train station in front of the university this afternoon.  Aside from collecting donations from sympathisers, they also called for the main agenda item for May Day to be rejecting the results of the April 9 legislative elections. In order to attract support from UI students, they gave speeches and handed out hundreds of May Day leaflets with calls to reject the election results.

According to the workers, the recent elections were not a people’s election, were fraudulent and are illegitimate. The grounds for the workers’ rejection of the elections is because the ‘festival of democracy’ failed to give birth to an elite or assembly members who side with the interests of workers – for example who have the courage to abolish contract labour systems (outsourcing) which is extremely harmful to workers.

APINDO: 2003 Labor Legislation Should Be Revised

The Jakarta Globe published this article on the discussion, so often raised by APINDO, to revise 2003’s labor legislation.  In the article, APINDO’s secretary general provides the usual chorus:

All the clauses involved with strikes and contract terminations, including compensation, put a huge burden on our hands, especially during the current economic crisis.

Toshiba Workers Rally Outside Japanese Embassy

Laborers from PT. Toshiba CPI stage a rally in front of the Japanese embassy in Central Jakarta on Monday. They demanded that the company grant them their right to form a union and improve welfare." (Jakarta Post)

Indonesian Migrants in Macau: Subsidizing The Mega-City

The current issue of the Critical Asian Studies includes a great article on Indonesian migrant workers in Macau.  The article uses the case of Indonesian migrant workers in Macau to show that Asia’s booming mega-cities, despite more optimistic discourses, rely heavily on the vulnerable and easiliy exploitable labor of undocumented migrant workers.  Through on the ground interviews with undocumented Indonesian workers, the article explicates how various interests in Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Macau combine to create a gendered class of flexible labor that, in turn, makes these mega-cities possible.

Mehr On The Fall of the PKI

Nataniel Mehr, who has a forthcoming book called Constructive Bloodbath In Indonesia: The US, Britain, and the Mass Killings of 1965-66, has written an article in Monthly Review titled “The Fall of the Indonesian Communist Party,” which places the PKI’s own ideology in relation to Russian and Chinese policies of the time.  Perhaps most interesting to me was his inclusion of a Nov. 1966 self-assessment by exhiled PKI leaders in China.

PT Bank UOB Buana Workers Go On Strike

Thousands of banking workers have gone out on strike at Singapore-based United Overseas Bank’s Indonesia subsidiary, PT Bank UOB Buana, disrupting business at branches across the country and threatening to stay out for up to 3 days.  While press coverage naturally focuses on issues of pay and bonuses, the union’s concerns also include who qualifies as a full-time employee and reforms to its pension plan.

The Jakarta Post and Jakarta Globe articles offer differing figures on the amount of the demanded pay increase, perhaps the result of the contested realm of company and union contract costing.  What both articles agree on is the fact that, despite management’s citing the global financial crisis, UOB posted increased profits in the first quarter of 2009 over the first quarter of 2008.

Here are the reporters on the strike from Tempo Interaktif, Detik, and Kompas, with some interesting variations in the focus of the coverage.

[Update 4/21/09]:  The Jakarta Post is reporting that the UOB Buana workers have set another strike deadline for the end of April.

SOE Unions Supporting Gen. Prabowo’s Gerindra Party?

The Jakarta Post is reporting the Alliance of Labor Unions Against Privatization (Alkatras), an organization of state-owned enterprise labor unions, held a conference announcing their support of retired Gen. Prabowo Subianto‘s Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra).  The government is concerned because this event appears to be breaking a law against employee’s of state owned enterprises actively campaigning in elections.

For others concerned with human rights, it may be puzzling, if not alarming, that a labor organization would support a candidate with as dubious a human rights record as Prabowo, which includes accusations of “human rights abuses during his tour of duty in East Timor and involvement in the kidnappings, torture, abuse and murder of anti-Soeharto intellectuals and activists during the turmoil of 1998.”  However, as a part of his version of economic nationalism, Prabowo has made explicit overtures to the SOE labor unions by opposing privatization.  Perhaps this incident is a sign that they are paying off, though it is hard to say from the article how representative Alkatras is of the SOE workforce as a whole.

[Update 4/7/09]: The SOE Minister made a statement today putting distance between the SOE’s leadership and the statements made by Alkatras in support of Prabowo.  That is, despite the potential crossover interest of labor and mangement on the issue of privatization of the SOE’s and the fact that the press conference was held at PLN headquarters.

Update on Grand Aquila Campaign

The International Union of Food Workers (IUF) recently released this update on the on-going campaign by Federasi Serikat Pekerja Mandiri (FSPM) to organize workers at the Hotel Grand Aquila in Bandung, which resulted in 137 workers being fired, with management targeted union leaders.  The union is currently seeking criminal charges based on a 2000 law protecting freedom of association, an article of which “makes it a criminal offense for an employer to punish workers exercising the right to freedom of association.”

As the IUF admits, the law is rarely enforced and, according to last month’s Tempo article on the dispute, FSPM has had previous attempts to bring criminal charges blocked.  The IUF does point to one successful prosecution of the law in February, a case brought by the metalworkers union, Federasi Serikat Pekerja Metal (FSPMI), against the Japanese owned electronic component manufacturer PT Kim Jim Pasuruan (KJI).

FSPM members rally outside the gates of the Grand Aquila Hotel Bandung, Indonesia (from IUF Asia)

Increase in Labor Disputes In State Owned Enterprise

Kompas is reporting an increase in labor disputes in Indonesia’s state-owned enterprises.  The article quotes Erman Suparno, Minister of Manpower and Transmigration, who attributes the rise to increasingly active unions in the SOE sector, along with failures in the bilateral negotiation process.

From the labor side, Abdul Latif Algaf, leader of Federasi Serikat Pekerja BUMN (the Federation of United State Enterprise Worker Unions), is quoted as also seeing problems in the bilateral process, but attributes the increase in disputes to a heightened consciousness among workers.