INTERNATIONALLY-RECOGNISED CORE LABOUR STANDARDS

IN INDONESIA

Introduction

This report on the respect of internationally recognised core labour standards in Indonesia is one of the series the ICFTU is producing in accordance with the Ministerial Declaration adopted at the first Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) (Singapore, 9-13 December 1996) and endorsed at the second WTO Ministerial Conference (Geneva, 18-20 May 1998) in which the Ministers stated: "We renew our commitment to the observance of internationally recognised core labour standards." These standards were further upheld in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work adopted by the 174 member countries of the ILO at the International Labour Conference in June 1998.

The ICFTU considers that the respect of core labour standards should consequently form part of the trade-related issues which are discussed at the WTO Trade Policy Review (TPR) meetings and is accordingly preparing reports on the respect of fundamental workers' rights in all the countries which are subject to TPRs.

There are now at least eleven recognised trade union centres in Indonesia, the largest being the Federation of All Indonesian Trade Unions (FSPSI) which until June 1998 was also the sole government-authorised union centre (see Section I) and which in August 1998 split into two parts, the other being named the "Presidium of Reformation of Indonesian Trade Union Federation" (FSPDSI). The second largest trade union centre is the Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI).

Indonesia ratified ILO Convention No. 87 (1948), the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention in June 1998 and ILO Convention No. 98 (1949), the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention in 1957.

1998 has seen important and fast-moving changes in Indonesia’s respect for freedom of association since the Soeharto era came to an end on 21 May 1998, an event which itself was closely related to economic collapse and a massive and still worsening explosion in unemployment and poverty leading to economic and social unrest. While there have been some significant improvements in legislation under the new administration of President B.J. Habibie, violations of trade union rights have persisted during this period. The account below attempts the complex task of detailing the situation with regard to freedom of association prevailing over the 25 years leading up to May 1998, then indicating in what respects union rights have improved since then and what major problems still endure.

i) The 1970s-1990s period: freedom of association curtailed, exports maximised

The sole legal trade union centre between February 1973 and June 1998 was the Federation of All Indonesian Trade Unions (FSPSI). It was set up in a government-ordered restructuring of unions and was controlled and directed by the government, which viewed industrial relations as a security issue and explained its control of the FSPSI by the need to maintain law and order in accordance with a state-sponsored ideology known as "Pancasila," which stresses consultation and consensus but is in reality used to limit dissent, to enforce social and political cohesion and to restrict the development of opposition elements.

Retired military officers held leadership positions in the FSPSI and its affiliated unions’ regional and district branches. This was justified by the official ideology of "dual functioning" which gives the armed forces (ABRI) a role in the social and economic development of the country, in addition to defence. The authorities also said that workers lacked the necessary education, leadership experience and expertise to run their own unions.

Trade union organisations outside the FSPSI were repressed. Their activities were obstructed by security agents and the Manpower Department and their officials were harassed and often arrested and jailed. The most significant alternative trade union centre, never legally recognised under the Soeharto regime, was the Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI), set up in 1992. The Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Manpower refused to register it on several occasions, even though the ILO strongly recommended that the SBSI should be registered and the union said it had fulfilled the necessary criteria. The SBSI was constantly intimidated and harassed by the security forces. There was a permanent threat of military interference in SBSI meetings and police or military officials frequently visited its offices. Since 1992, over 7,500 workers have been reported to have been dismissed, blacklisted and in some cases imprisoned for being SBSI members.

The law did not adequately protect workers against acts of anti-union discrimination. Employers were able to invoke "lack of harmony in the working relationship" to justify sacking workers who joined unions. Although 1992 legislation banned interference by employers in trade union affairs, the law was ignored. Generally FSPSI branches could only be set up with the agreement of the employers concerned, who would also need to provide their consent before branch leaders took office. Many employers took leadership posts themselves in the FSPSI at regional and at national level. The security forces intimidated many SBSI branch leaders into resigning. The Ministry of Information banned the media from employing members of the AJI independent journalists’ union, who were frequently harassed, beaten-up and victimised.

Even in 1998, anti-union discrimination has persisted, one case being that of six trade union officials at the Yota Megah Company, north Jakarta. The company employs mainly women workers and produces sports wear for Adidas and Kappa exported to the US, France, Italy and Canada. On 23 January 1998, the union officials were sacked after they had attended a meeting at the local labour department to conciliate a labour dispute. The labour department took no action to assist them.

Public servants and workers in state enterprises and military-owned enterprises could not join trade unions. They were obliged to belong to the Indonesian Corps of Civil Servants, KORPRI, which the government set up in 1971. It was not a trade union, was not independent of the government and could not carry out trade union functions, serving instead as an electoral machine for the ruling GOLKAR party to distribute ballot boxes in the workplace and monitor workers’ votes to ensure they voted for GOLKAR. The KORPRI Central Development Council was chaired by the Minister of Home Affairs. Teachers were required to belong to the government-controlled PGRI, which was given trade union status in 1990. It did not perform a union function, but carried out welfare activities.

A January 1994 decree, confirmed by the Director General of Manpower in April 1995, said that independent unions could be set up in a workplace and did not have to join the FSPSI. They could negotiate collective agreements in enterprises with at least 25 employees and where at least half of the workforce agreed to the establishment of the union. However, if an independent enterprise union wanted to join a federation, it could only join an FSPSI-affiliated sectoral union, which is a violation of the international labour conventions on freedom of association. Manpower Department officials or security agents often advised workplace unions to join the FSPSI. The decree contradicted a 1993 Ministry of Manpower Regulation (see section below) stipulating the legal requirements for recognition as a bargaining agent. Guideline 348, issued in 1995, said that an employer's permission was no longer needed before an enterprise union could be formed.

By the end of 1997, around 1,200 non-FSPSI workplace unions (SPTPs) had been set up according to official figures. However, there were many reports of company-controlled unions being formed by employers with the complicity of the Ministry of Manpower and its provincial representatives, who took bribes from employers. If workers tried to set up independent workplace unions, they were usually threatened with dismissal. Representatives of the Department of Manpower or representatives of the security forces often participated in "collective bargaining" between workers and employers in enterprises. Employers frequently ignored agreements, and in many cases, the agreements only repeated legal minimum wage provisions.

Following strikes in Medan, Sumatra in April 1994, SBSI General Chairman Mukhtar Pakpahan was sentenced to four years in prison for "publicly inciting people to crime and violence against the authorities", although he had not been in Medan at the time. The Supreme Court quashed his sentence in September 1995 - the Deputy Chief Justice who quashed the sentence later being dismissed - against a background of some indications of a relaxation of the government’s control. The SBSI said that they were able to carry out their activities with less harassment from mid-1995 onwards, although much depended on the attitude of the local military commander.

At the FSPSI's 1995 congress, according to some accounts the first to be held without overt interference from the government or the military, the FSPSI adopted a new constitution. It said that a candidate had to have served at least five years in the union movement to be eligible for office – thereby providing the basis for the reduction and eventual elimination of military personnel in the FSPSI. It did not get rid of military personnel who already held office. The FSPSI also restructured itself as a federation with industrial unions, although it maintained its regional and district structures. From 1985 onwards, it had been organised as a unitary structure. The constitutional changes also provided for the FSPSI to begin to collect union dues itself (previously the Manpower Department had collected the dues from employers and allocated them to the FSPSI). This required changes in the law and took effect in May 1996, following which time many employers have ceased paying union dues.

The situation worsened again following riots of 27 July, 1996 which took place after the police cracked down on the opposition. Muchtar Pakpahan, general chairman of the SBSI was arrested on 29 July 1996, on charges of masterminding the riots. The government appeared determined to make sure he got a long sentence and to wipe out the SBSI in what was widely seen as part of an attempt to stifle opposition before elections in 1997 and 1998. Others arrested included Dita Sari, leader of the PPBI, a students’ organisation which co-operates with workers to help them organise strikes and demonstrations, and Coen Husein Pontoh, a leader of a similar students’ organisation linked to farmers and also to a new political party called the PRD, which the authorities said was Marxist. Dita Sari was sentenced to six years in prison in April 1997 and Coen Pontoh to three and a half years.

In October 1996, while apparently unable to prepare a solid court case against Pakpahan, the Supreme Court re-imposed his four-year prison sentence in connection with the 1994 Medan strikes. The Supreme Court ruling was unprecedented, procedurally flawed and came about because of political manipulation.

Pakpahan’s trial opened in December, 1996. Pakpahan was charged under two sections of the anti-subversion law carrying a sentence of between eight years in prison and the death penalty, and under the criminal code for spreading hatred against the government, carrying a seven year prison sentence. It was clearly a show trial. The judge violated trial ethics. He was biased and tried to intimidate the defence which was banned from questioning witnesses. It became clear that Pakpahan was being tried for his leadership of the SBSI and his political opinions.

By March 1997, Pakpahan was too ill to continue with the trial, which was postponed and Pakpahan moved from prison to hospital. On 7 August 1997 he filed a judicial review to the Supreme Court asking for a review of his conviction for the 1994 Medan riots. The Court refused. On 28 August 1997, the trial resumed. Pakpahan was too ill and the trial was again postponed. It later resumed, but on 10 October Pakpahan collapsed in the courtroom. By the end of 1997 the state had not proved its charges against him. The trial was set to continue when Pakpahan’s health allowed. Meanwhile, security authorities effectively shut down the SBSI’s planned 3-day congress in September 1997 on the first day, by first of all intimidating every hotel into declining to host the congress so that the SBSI were forced to hold a one-day meeting in their own building, then entering the congress during the afternoon session and leaving the SBSI with no choice other than to close the proceedings early.

ii) Collective Bargaining and the Right to Strike pre-1998

The industrial relations system was - and still is - subservient to Pancasila, the government-sponsored national ideology referred to above. Collective bargaining was severely restricted. The requirements for recognition as a bargaining agent set down in Ministry of Manpower Regulation No. 3, 1993, on registered trade unions, enforced and maintained the FSPSI monopoly: unions must have fifty per cent of workers in an enterprise; at least 100 units at plant level; 25 organisations at district level; and five organisations at provincial level, or alternatively, at least 10,000 members throughout Indonesia. The FSPSI also had to give its approval. The Regulation also said that a federation must comprise at least ten such unions to be registered.

Complicated mediation and compulsory arbitration procedures made legal strikes virtually impossible. Strikes could be held in private enterprises which were not considered vital to the national interest. Nearly all strikes were short wildcat strikes which were immediately ended by police or military intervention after a request from the company. FSPSI workplace branches often intervened on the side of management during a dispute. There were many examples of FSPSI enterprise unions going on strike over payment of the minimum wage and not being backed up by FSPSI branch unions. Most strikes took place because employers paid below the legal minimum wage. In many cases where the minimum wage was paid, employers cut other benefits. Conflicts also took place over recognition of FSPSI unions in enterprises. Local government officials and security agents kept workers under surveillance during strikes, participated in negotiations, and detained, arrested and interrogated activists. One notorious example came in May 1993 when a female trade unionist named Marsinah, last seen alive in a police station, was sexually assaulted and murdered for organising a strike in Sidoardjo in East Java. The perpetrators were never found.

Military intervention in labour conflicts became even more marked in 1997. Most employers had close ties with local police or army units. The government revoked one of a series of regulations permitting military intervention in industrial disputes in January, 1994; but the army can intervene under a 1986 decree, "particularly in cases pertaining to strikes, work contracts, dismissals, and changes in status or ownership of a company". A 1990 decree says that the internal security agency, Bakorstanas, can intervene in strikes in the interests of political and social stability.

New labour legislation was passed in September 1997 and was due to enter into force on 1 October 1998. The new law did not fulfil any of the three main recommendations made by an ILO Direct Contacts Mission to Indonesia in 1993 on bringing the law into line with ILO Conventions. These were to consolidate the existing complicated labour and trade union legislation; to ensure transparency of the legislation; and to entrench fundamental trade union rights.

The new law said that unions could be set up at plant level as well as federation level, but they had to be registered with the authorities in line with prevailing legal regulations. This referred to Ministry of Manpower Regulation No. 3, 1993 enforcing the FSPSI monopoly. The role of unions was restricted to negotiating a collective agreement and being a party to a labour dispute. The law did not adequately protect workers against anti-union discrimination, nor against interference from employers. In several parts the law was subject to the enactment of further regulations – on trade unions; in respect to procedures for drawing up, extending and amending a collective agreement; procedures for going on strike, and details regarding temporary employment contracts.

The September 1997 law stated that collective agreements could only be made at plant level, and only registered trade unions could be party to an agreement. It appeared to say that unions could not go on strike in pursuit of a collective agreement. It stipulated lengthy pre-strike procedures and banned industry-wide strikes, mass workers’ protests, workers’ rallies and sympathy strikes. Strikes could only be conducted in the company concerned. A union must give strike notice to both the employer and the local manpower department. Strikes could not disturb "public security and order".

Indonesia had annual growth of GDP of 5.8 per cent from 1980 to 1990 and 7.6 per cent from 1990 to 1996. Despite this, even before the Asian economic and financial crisis, on the most optimistic World Bank estimates 28 million people, 14.5% of the population, were living on less than one US dollar a day. One-third of the desperately poor - in other words, seven million people - lived in the urban areas and, according to the ILO, were mainly engaged in occupations in the manufacturing, construction and services sectors. Women workers were highly represented among both the rural and urban poor. The continuation of such large numbers of the absolute poor, even in the urban areas where exports were growing fastest, shows the skewed nature of income and wealth distribution in Indonesia.

There were clear links between such repression of workers and trade and investment policy during the Soeharto era. Annual foreign direct investment in Indonesia increased by a factor of ten between the early 1980s and the early 1990s. Japanese companies were the largest single source of investment, followed by Great Britain, the Netherlands, the USA, Korea, Taiwan, Germany and Canada. Low costs were perhaps the major factor in the companies’ decisions to locate their manufacturing in Indonesia, as is clear from examination of Nike’s extensive investments in Indonesia. The minimum wage was the lowest in south-east Asia at about US $1.20 a day in 1997 and, despite its low level, was often ignored with impunity by employers. The Soeharto government maintained that higher wages would destroy the country’s competitive edge in attracting foreign investment. This is despite independent estimates that while wages accounted for 8 per cent of production costs in Indonesia, 35 per cent of production costs was taken up by bribes and other payments as a result of corruption - further evidence of enormous inequality linked to the repression of workers’ basic right to form trade unions to defend their interests.

Foreign investment has also been associated with violation of the rights of indigenous peoples in Indonesia, who have very few rights of ownership of ancestral land and are frequently subject to forced take-over of land by the state, particularly in mining and logging areas. These problems are most prevalent in Irian Jaya and Kalimantan. In Irian Jaya, the operations of multinational companies such as Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. have caused extensive environmental damage which may have led directly to the deaths of Amungme indigenous people, through flood damage resulting from their mining operations, as well as indirectly through financial assistance to Indonesia’s military forces to crush tribal unrest stemming in part to anger over the mining.

iii) January to May 1998: Labour’s role in Political Change

Indonesia’s deepening financial and economic crisis led to increasing social and political unrest in 1998. The IMF programme failed to stabilise the economy. Many demonstrations took place in the first months of the year protesting against the government, calling for political reform, and for lower prices.

There was a crack-down on the SBSI and other activists immediately before the presidential election on 11 March 1998 when President Soeharto was re-elected by the Consultative People’s Assembly (MPR). The SBSI office in Jakarta was visited by some 30 police officers who forced the office to be closed until after the election. On 9 March, Yudi Rahmat, chairman of the SBSI executive board, and Yudi Hermanto, chairman of the SBSI in Padang, were arrested in the Tanjung Priok area of north Jakarta on suspicion of holding an illegal meeting and distributing an SBSI leaflet. The leaflet called for a peaceful march to the People's Consultative Assembly to demand an end to layoffs, lowering of prices of the nine basic goods; ending collusion, nepotism, monopolies, and oligopolies; the release of Muchtar Pakpahan and the registration of SBSI as a trade union. There were reports that they were subjected to electric shock treatment in detention. They were later released pending trial.

On 9 March, Sukirman, an SBSI member was arrested for trying to set up a plant level branch of the SBSI in Lampung Utara in South Sumatra. Sanusi, an SBSI member in Tanjung Priok-Jakarta was arrested on 10 March in connection with a planned demonstration. On 9 March, SBSI activist Farah Diba and three others were arrested while taking part in a demonstration in front of the Sarinah department store in central Jakarta to protest against lay-offs and to read a list of demands for political reform. They were released on bail and went on trial on 5 May charged with violating Presidential Decree No.5/1963 which had not been used for decades and banned all political activity except that carried out by government agencies. It carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Farah Diba was finally acquitted by a court on 12 June. On 10 March, three SBSI activists, Suseno, head of the SBSI Serang branch; Sumantri, branch secretary, and Mahmud Hadi, branch deputy-head, were arrested in the West Java town of Serang. SBSI documents were also confiscated.

The value of the Indonesian rupiah continued to fall following President Soeharto’s re-election by the Consultative People’s Assembly. Prices of essential commodities skyrocketed. Thousands of migrant workers returned from neighbouring countries after being retrenched. Small and medium-sized factories and companies, badly hit by the currency crisis, cut working hours, reduced production and cut their workforce or obliged them to work in shifts to reduce costs. Massive strikes took place at the beginning of May 1998 as subsidies on fuel, electricity and transport prices were removed in line with IMF conditions. Millions of workers were laid-off from their jobs. Riots took place in Jakarta in mid-May triggered by severe food shortages and high inflation. Some 1,200 people were killed in protests against President Soeharto’s mis-handling of the economic crisis.

On 21 May 1998 President Soeharto resigned.

iv) Improvements in Freedom of Association over May-October 1998

On the day of President Soeharto’s resignation, the new president, B.J. Habibie, announced that Muchtar Pakpahan would be released from prison and granted an amnesty. Pakpahan was released on 26 May. Several other SBSI officials and members were also released, although other labour activists remained in prison.

A new Minister of Manpower was appointed. On 26 May he said that workers were now free to set up their own unions provided their establishment was in line with the law and the doctrine of Pancasila. He promised that the government would never again use the military to interfere into labour disputes.

On 27 May, the new Minister issued Ministerial Regulation No. 5 of 1998 on trade union registration which cancelled Ministerial Regulation No. 3 of 1993 enforcing the FSPSI monopoly. The President assented to the decree on 3 June. The decree provided for union registration and recognition and the formation and development of independent trade unions. New plant- and sectoral-level unions had to register with the authorities. Existing plant- and sectoral-level unions had to re-register within 90 days. Plant unions were to hold leadership elections where they had not done so. Federations and confederations had only to notify their establishment to the Ministry of Manpower. The decree allowed for more than one union to be registered in anyone workplace or establishment.

The FSPSI’s plant and sectoral unions were obliged to re-register under the new law and it had to inform the Ministry of Manpower of its existence. FSPSI leadership positions at branch, provincial and national level were still held by members of the ruling GOLKAR party, ex-military officials and ex-civil servants, and in some cases by employers and businessmen. The government said that it would now recognise the SBSI which could now legally register its member unions. Several new union confederations emerged in the wake of the new law.

On 2 June, the government said it would ratify ILO Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and the Right to Organise. The President signed a decree to this effect on 5 June. Delegates from the SBSI were included in Indonesia’s delegation to the annual ILO Conference in Geneva. Following the promulgation of Ministerial Decree No.5/1998, the Manpower Ministry listed the recognition of 1,484 local unions from FSPSI, 10 unions from SBSI and 2 unions from FSPDSI as of 27 September 1998. Eleven trade union centres had been established as of that time.

On 19 June 1998, reports from East Java police said that an army captain had admitted that Marsinah, the trade union activist sexually assaulted and murdered in 1993 (see section ii) above) was tortured and killed by Sidoarjo military. The Ministry of Manpower said that the case would be reopened. On 24 July 1998, Coen Pontoh, the imprisoned farmers’ leader (see section i) above) was released from prison.

During July 1998, the head of the armed forces, General Wiranto gave a speech in which he reformulated the dual-function of the military to one of sharing power and responsibility and "guiding from behind". In September, the Minister of Manpower announced that he had written to the Co-ordinating Minister for Politics and Security and the Minister of Defence in June asking that military personnel be ordered to stay out of labour disputes. He said that they had agreed and the ABRI would issue regulations banning its members from intervening. He also said that military personnel would no longer be involved in collective bargaining and negotiating solutions to disputes. A representative of the Ministry of Manpower told an ICFTU mission at the beginning of October that ABRI would no longer be allowed to interfere in industrial disputes, except when public order was seriously disturbed.

On assuming office, the government continued to forbid public servants, and workers in state enterprises, at the time obliged to belong to the Indonesian Corps of Civil Servants, KORPRI, to join a proper trade union, although it would no longer be compulsory to be a member of Korpri. By August, unions had been given the right to organise in state-run companies, but not in the public administration. A representative of the Ministry of Manpower told the ICFTU mission in October 1998 that, as had been recommended by an ILO Direct Contacts mission in August 1998, public service employees could now establish trade unions and that KORPRI would be holding a congress in February 1999.

On 8 September, the Minister of Manpower announced that the entry into force of the 1997 labour law, scheduled for 1 October, 1998, would be postponed for one year in order to amend it after consultations, owing to the ratification of ILO Convention No. 87. He also said that two bills on trade unions and on labour disputes and settlement had been drafted.

At the beginning of June 1998 there were violent clashes in Surabaya between police and strikers who were demanding higher wages. Some 10,000 workers at the shoe-making Kasogi International factory in Surabaya went on strike on 21 June. The army doubled its presence at the factory. On 30 June troops fired rubber bullets on a violent labour protest at the PT Ganung Garuda steel factory in Bekasi, east of Jakarta where workers were demanding higher pay, better conditions and the right to form a union. There were 104 arrests and 26 people were wounded by bullets. At the end of June, workers at four PT Maspion plants took part in a peaceful demonstration in support of wage increases. Many were severely injured by soldiers with rattan sticks and rifle butts who tried to stop them from joining the demonstration, and one worker, Lasimo, died in hospital.

At the beginning of July the government threatened to bring in a law to limit demonstrations including the requirement to obtain prior authorisation in certain cases. Muchtar Pakpahan was warned by the Justice Minister that he could be re-arrested if he engaged in activities which were in breach of the law.

On 15-16 July, 600 women workers at PT Mayora Indah went on strike on 15-16 July. They were attacked by hired thugs. They were threatened with violence and the sack if they continued the strike. On 23 July, the owner of PT Tropical Wood Indotama, in Deli Serdang, which exports furniture to the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, US Korea, Czech Republic, and China, and military officials intimidated members of a newly-formed SBSI union. They were detained for five hours, and several of them were forced to sign letters agreeing to retire.

Some 1,700 workers at the Hong-Kong based textile factory PT Tyfountex in Solo organised in the KRKB, working class committee for reform, went on strike on 3 August over continuation of payments to sick workers provided for the in the law and higher wages in line with the increase in the minimum wage. Management locked the strikers out and fired them and hired replacement workers. The Labour Court ordered the reinstatement of the strikers but the company ignored the court order. On 25 August the police beat up protesting laid-off textile workers to prevent them from marching to the ILO office using rattan sticks. Four of them had to go to hospital. On 23 October, the police in Medan broke up a strike with rubber bullets and batons leaving at least nine workers injured. Workers at the Latexindo factory which makes rubber gloves were demanding a pay increase and reinstatement of colleagues who had been sacked during earlier protests. Other workers from the plastics company, BPLP, rallied in front of the Medan parliament to call for wage increases as well as for an investigation into the alleged beating of some of their colleagues by the police.

Despite the improvements in labour law provided for in Ministerial Regulation No. 5 of 1998 (see above), at the beginning of October 1998 the SBSI said it was having problems in registering unions at plant level. In some cases this had led to all the workers in the union being dismissed. The authorities, in rejecting applications said that the union had to obtain a letter of approval from the company, had to have a separate constitution and bylaws and its constitution had to swear by the 1945 constitution and the Pancasila ideology.

Pressure for the release of Dita Sari and other detained labour activists has been increasing over recent months. On 29 August 1998, an international trade union co-ordination meeting sponsored by the ICFTU Asian and Pacific Regional Organisation (ICFTU-APRO) demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Dita Sari (see section i) above) and all other trade unionists, labour activists and political detainees in Indonesia including Samsunar, Romli Izaque and Misbakhul Zakaria. The resolution also called on the President of Indonesia to take immediate actions to stop the ABRI, security, intelligence operatives, "Sospol" personnel and the police from interfering in labour disputes and industrial relations matters. On 29 October 1998, some 100 workers demonstrated outside the attorney general’s office for the release of Dita Sari, for an end to the role of the military in politics and for lower prices for basic commodities. They said that the army always favoured employers in labour disputes. In November it was reported that the government had told Dita Sari that she could be released from prison if she agreed not to travel abroad until the year 2002 and if she agreed not to participate in any organisation. She refused and remains in prison at the time of writing.

Although the government announced a 15% increase in the minimum wage from 1 August, protests and strikes over the economic crisis are continuing to take place, mainly in the industrial belt around Jakarta over job losses and to demand pay increases to keep up with soaring food prices and high inflation. Indonesian official reports have stated that nearly 80 million of the population of 202 million are living below the poverty line and unemployment is on the increase. Estimates are that at least 20 million workers will have lost their jobs by the end of the year. The ILO adds that women are at greater risk from unemployment and will be more affected by the poverty which results. In this context of mounting economic and social pressures, the evolving situation with regard to respect for trade union rights will need to continue to be closely and carefully monitored.

II. Discrimination and Equal Remuneration

Indonesia ratified ILO Convention No. 100 (1951), Equal Remuneration in 1958 but it has not ratified ILO Convention No. 111 (1958), Discrimination (Employment and Occupation).

The Constitution of Indonesia does not explicitly forbid discrimination. While the 1993 Guidelines of State Policy adopted by the People's Consultative Assembly explicitly state that women have the same rights as men, the Guidelines also state that this must not conflict with their role in improving family welfare and the education of the younger generation.

Discrimination against women, ethnic minorities, the disabled and former political prisoners or "Tapols" are endemic problems in Indonesia. The majority of women are disproportionately represented at the lower end of the socio-economic scale. A 1995 national profile of women's positions and roles showed that 37.4 percent of civil servants were women, but only 5.5 percent were in positions of authority. Income disparity between men and women increases significantly with lower educational achievement.

Women in Indonesia constitute 40% of the active labour force, as compared to 36% in 1980. Female workers in manufacturing generally receive lower wages than men. Many female factory workers are hired as day labourers instead of as full-time permanent employees, meaning that companies are not required to provide benefits, such as maternity leave, to them. There is a growing trend in manufacturing to hire women to do work in their homes for less than the minimum wage. Women are often not given the extra benefits and salary that are their due when they are the head of household and in some cases do not receive employment benefits for their husband and children, such as medical insurance and income tax deductions. Unemployment rates for women are approximately 50 percent higher than for men and the effects of the economic crisis since mid-1997 have been disproportionately borne by women.

Despite laws that provide women with a 3-month maternity leave, pregnant women are often dismissed or are replaced while on leave. Some companies require that women sign statements that they will not become pregnant.

Sexual harassment is not a crime under the law. Female job applicants and workers have complained of being sexually victimised by foremen and factory owners. The draft September 1997 labour legislation, since suspended (see Section I above), did not address sexual harassment and violence against women in the workplace and did not provide adequate protection in areas of employment where women have regularly suffered abuse, such as overseas employment and household service.

There has been some improvement in women's educational indicators over the last decade, with the number of girls graduating from high school tripling between 1980 and 1990.

There is discrimination against ethnic Chinese, who constitute approximately 3 percent of the population. Since 1959, non-citizen ethnic Chinese have been prohibited from running businesses in rural Indonesia. Attacks on Chinese­owned businesses are commonplace during periods of social unrest, as has been seen on many occasions in recent years.

A government-sponsored transmigration programme, which seeks to resettle people from densely populated areas to sparsely populated areas outside Java, has led to under-representation of local populations in the civil service in regions such as East Timor and Irian Jaya, which constitutes discrimination against the people of such regions.

The six to ten million disabled persons in Indonesia face considerable discrimination in employment. Disabled persons are reportedly taken off the streets by the authorities and brought to "rehabilitation centres" for job training.

A Disability Law was passed in January 1997 on access to education, employment, and assistance for the disabled. The law requires companies employing over 100 people to give 1 percent of the jobs to the disabled and mandates accessibility for the disabled to public facilities. Implementing regulations have not been issued, so the effectiveness of the law has yet to be seen.

Hundreds of thousands of former political prisoners or "Tapols" face extensive discrimination in employment. Subjected to forced labour in detention camps during the 1960s and 1970s, these persons are required to have the initials "E.T." ("Ex-Tapol" or political prisoner) stamped in their identification cards. This allows prospective employers to identify them and subjects them to discrimination. Many job advertisements specify that ex-Tapols should not apply for the vacant position.

III. Child Labour

Indonesia has not ratified ILO Convention No. 138 (1973), the Minimum Age Convention.

The current law governing child labour is still the colonial-era ordinance of 1925 on "Measures Limiting Child Labour and Night Work of Women," which sets a minimum age of 12 for employment. This was effectively superceded by the 1987 regulation issued by the Minister of Manpower entitled "Protection of Children Forced to Work." This regulation legalises the employment of children under the age of 14 who are considered as having to work in order to contribute to the income of their families. It does not set a minimum age for children in this category. The draft labour law of September 1997, presently in suspension (see Section I above), would prohibit employers from hiring children under the age of 15, with the same exemption as in the 1987 regulation that employers may hire children who are forced for economic reasons to work.

A 1994 law raised the length of compulsory education from 6 to 9 years, but the law has not been implemented due to inadequate school facilities and lack of family financial resources to support children staying in school. Official and unofficial fees for public education, including payments for registration, books, meals, transport, and uniforms have risen to prohibitively high levels for many families. The government allocates only 2.2 percent of gross national product to education. Although primary education is in principle universal, UNICEF estimates that more than 1 million children drop out of primary school every year, due partly to the costs associated with education.

Millions of children work, often under poor conditions, instead of attending school. Child labour exists in both urban and rural areas and in both the formal and informal sectors. According to a 1995 report of the Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics, 4 percent of children between the ages of 10 and 14 work full-time and another 4 percent work part-time in addition to going to school. The 1994 government labour force survey reported that there were 2.08 million children age 10 to 14 in the labour force, but many observers believe that number to be significantly understated.

According to government labour force data, most working children work in the agricultural sector, although the number of working children in urban areas has risen significantly with urbanisation. Many children work in factories and under extremely hazardous conditions as scavengers and garbage pickers and on fishing boats. According to the Ministry of Social Affairs, 20,000 street children live in Jakarta and thousands more in other cities. They sell newspapers, shine shoes, help to park or watch cars and otherwise attempt to earn money.

More child labourers work in the informal sector than the formal sector. Where children work in the formal sector, such work tends to occur alongside their parents in home enterprises, on plantations and in family-owned shops and small factories, particularly those that are "satellites" of large industries. There are children working in large factories, although the number is unknown, especially since documents verifying age are easily falsified. Children working in factories usually work the same number of hours as adults. Children work in the rattan and wood furniture industries, the garment industry, the footwear industry, food processing, and toy making, among others.

In the Tangerang industrial centre near Jakarta, one report stated that girls as young as eleven "can be seen at lunch time sitting tired and silent by the food stalls outside the factory gates each working day", including in larger concerns serving export markets, such as the textile firm Collan Kurnia Wilesa which exported to clients in the USA, Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia and the chemical firm Darmali Group which had a canning contract with Bayer and Bayer. The impact of low wages and long working hours could be seen in the health of the workers, with an estimated 40% level of malnutrition according to the Jakarta Nutrition Academy.

Many domestic workers are female children under age 15. Although accurate figures are unavailable, estimates put the number of child domestic workers at up to 1.5 million. A survey done in 1995 revealed that these children work long hours, receive low pay, are generally unaware of their rights and are often far from their families.

Several thousand children are forced to work on fishing platforms off the east coast of North Sumatra in conditions of bonded labour. Most are recruited from farming communities and once they arrive at the work site miles offshore, they are held as virtual prisoners and are not permitted to leave for at least 3 months and until a replacement worker can be found. Children receive average monthly wages of $17 to $32, well below the regional minimum wage. They live in isolation on the sea, work 12 to 20 hours per day in often dangerous conditions, and sleep in the workspace with no access to sanitary facilities. There are reports of physical, verbal, and sexual abuse of the children.

After first denying the existence of child labour for many years, in 1992 Indonesia became one of the first countries to participate in the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), signing a memorandum of understanding with the ILO under the IPEC programme. The government and the ILO signed another memorandum of understanding on child labour in March 1997 committing to "promote conditions to enable the Government to protect working children and progressively prohibit, restrict and regulate child labour with a view to its ultimate elimination." Although the ILO has sponsored training of labour inspectors on child labour under the IPEC programme, enforcement remains lax.

IV. Forced Labour

Indonesia ratified ILO Convention No. 29 (1930), the Forced Labour Convention in 1950. It has not ratified ILO Convention No. 105 (1957), the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention.

The law forbids forced labour. However, there are reports that the military have forced villagers to perform uncompensated labour in Irian Jaya. Many thousands of children work in conditions of bonded labour on fishing platforms off north Sumatra (see Section III above).

Although Indonesian law forbids forced labour, many thousands of children work in bonded labour and villagers in Irian Jaya have been forced to perform uncompensated work under conditions of forced labour.

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1. Indonesia’s grave violations of labour rights under the Soeharto regime were closely linked with lower export prices, which stood to have a major effect on Indonesia’s trading performance. The new government took some promising measures to establish compliance with internationally recognised core labour standards, particularly with regard to freedom of association. The government of Indonesia should now bring law and practice into full accordance with the guarantees of core labour standards stipulated in the ILO Conventions concerned.

2. As recommended by the ILO’s 1993 Direct Contacts Mission, the government must ensure transparency of the new labour and trade union legislation presently being drafted and entrench fundamental trade union rights. The government must ensure that union registration procedures are in compliance with core labour standards and eliminate requirements such as having to obtain a letter of approval from the company. It must prevent anti-union discrimination by employers with regard to dismissal of workers trying to form a union or workers going on strike. Public sector workers, including teachers and civil servants, need the right to form and join a trade union and full collective bargaining rights. The many problems with the pre-1998 and still current labour law, relating to complicated mediation and compulsory arbitration procedures that make legal strikes virtually impossible, must be tackled in the present reform to bring Indonesia’s law and practice into compliance with core international labour standards.

3. The government needs to enact and apply regulation of the army to bring about the application of the government’s commitment that it will never again use the military in labour disputes unless public order is seriously disturbed; release labour activists, including Dita Sari; and hold public enquiries into the deaths of trade unionists, like Marsinah, under the Soeharto regime, as part of the process of re-establishing confidence in the rule of law in the area of fundamental workers’ rights.

4. Indonesia must ratify ILO Convention No. 111 on discrimination and fully implement both the core labour standards on discrimination, ILO Conventions 100 and 111. This requires particularly urgent attention to equal remuneration and equal payment of benefits such as medical insurance and income tax deductions. Women’s employment needs to be protected during maternity leave. Legislation is needed to outlaw sexual harassment and violence in the workplace.

5. Changes in law and practice, backed up by positive action strategies, are needed to eliminate discrimination against ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples and local populations and to implement the January 1997 law on access for the disabled.

6. Indonesia should ratify and apply the core labour standard on child labour, ILO Convention No. 138; raise its minimum age for employment to 15 years or, if necessary as a transitional measure on grounds of insufficient economic development, to 14 years; increase the proportion of GNP devoted to education; and improve labour inspections to enforce the law on the minimum age for employment, using the technical assistance of the ILO’s IPEC programme.

7. Indonesia should ratify ILO Convention No. 105 on the prohibition of forced labour and take steps to ensure forced labour is prohibited throughout Indonesia, with particular regard to the situation of local people on Irian Jaya and the exploitation of children on fishing platforms off north Sumatra.

8. In line with the commitments accepted by Indonesia at the Singapore and Geneva WTO Ministerial Meetings and its obligations as a member of the ILO, the government of Indonesia should therefore provide reports to the WTO and the ILO on its legislative changes and implementation programmes with regard to the above areas.

9. The WTO should draw to the attention of the authorities of Indonesia the commitments they undertook to observe core labour standards at the Singapore and Geneva WTO Ministerial Conferences. The WTO should request the ILO to intensify its work with the government of Indonesia in these areas and provide a report to the WTO General Council on the occasion of the next trade policy review.

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References

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Indonesia: Release Prisoners of Conscience Now!, 1998.

Committee for Asian Women, Asian Women Workers’ Newsletter, various editions.

Education International (EI), Barometer on Human and Trade Union Rights in the Education Sector, 1998.

Human Rights Watch, Asia: Workers’ Rights Petition, 1995.

ICFTU, Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights, editions from 1994 to 1998, 1999 (forthcoming).

ICFTU, Trade Union Repression in Indonesia, 1994.

ICFTU, Trade Union World (monthly journal), various editions.

International Labour Organisation (ILO), Reports of the Committee on the Application of Standards, various editions in recent years.

International Labour Organisation (ILO), Reports of the Committee on Freedom of Association, various editions in recent years.

ILO, Reports of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, editions from 1993 to 1998.

ILO, The Social Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis, April 1998.

Simanjuntak, Edward and Blowfield, Mick, Tangerang: an industrial centre, 1991.

UNCTAD, World Investment Report, 1998.

US Department of State, Report on Human Rights Practices for 1997, 1998.

Wall Street Journal, various articles.

Working Group of Indonesian NGOs on Women Workers’ Rights, Indonesian Women Workers: Problems and Issues, 1995.