Jakarta – About 3,000 workers took to the streets outside Merdeka Palace on Wednesday to show their opposition to a plan by the government and the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) to revise the 2003 Labor Law.

Members of the Federation of Metalworkers Labor Unions demanded President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono cancel the revisions, which they said discriminated against workers in favor of employers.

"The bill will not only make workers' conditions even more miserable, it will also allow foreign entities to control Indonesian companies. So please drop the plan," union secretary-general Said Iqbal said. The workers threatened to organize a nationwide strike if the government ignored their demands.

Members of the automotive, shipping, electronic and aerospace industries, the workers began their march at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle, about two kilometers from the palace.

Part of the union-NGO grouping, the Labor Demand Alliance, they dismissed the amendments as "anti-labor and pro-capitalist" and called for the formation of a new law which had the support of all parties.

"The 2003 labor law was designed to facilitate the entry of investors into Indonesia, to ease the dismissal of workers, and to weaken the unions," organizer Budi Wardoyo said when announcing the protest on Tuesday.

"The revisions are worse than the law which is already bad," negotiator Kambusiha said. "All industrial sectors will be affected by this personnel outsourcing." The alliance said there were 15 crucial articles in the 2003 law that needed urgent revision.

One of the 15 articles revised by Apindo stipulated that foreign employees could now hold managerial jobs, different from the 2003 law that limited foreign workers to technical positions.

The alliance said this would further limit positions available for locals. "Protections for workers are being destroyed," said Budi. "We are demonstrating to counter the government's arguments that Law 13/2003 on labor was passed in order to increase worker prosperity," a representative said.

Demonstrators called upon laborers and the poor to establish a national network of unions from the country's industrial regions to demand a pro-labor law. "I hope that the members of the legislature will change their attitude (toward the bill)," Indonesian Labor Union Federation representative Dahlan Gurnin said.