Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – At a ceremony to mark World Labor Day (May 1) at Jakarta International Container Terminal (JICT), Tanjung Priok port, Indonesian Seafarers Association (KPI) chairman Hanafi Rustandi took the microphone and shouted loudly: "Stop speaking and down your tools." The noise stopped abruptly. All activities at the port were halted. Thousands of workers bowed their head while ships, container cranes and trucks switched on their headlamps and blew their horns for 10 minutes.
"The strike lasted just 10 minutes but it has been effective. We may lose 10 minutes but our employers and the government suffer billions of rupiah in losses. Someone may call it sabotage but we have the right to (strike) and it is part of our bargaining power," he said, winning applause from his audience.
Hanafi, also a representative of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) in Indonesia, was behind the recent strike of container truck drivers who protested the imposition of value-added tax on trucks operating at major ports in Java and Sumatra.
The government acceded to the drivers' demand of phasing out the tax and eliminating illegal charges at ports.
He was also the brains behind a strike last year of state-owned flag-carrier Garuda Indonesia's flight attendants and of state train company PT Kereta Api Indonesia (PT KAI). Again, the government had no alternative but to improve labor conditions at the state enterprises.
Hanafi, who looks far younger than his 60 years, did not previously like the idea of deploying some 350,000 ITF workers in the massive labor rally, despite his strong opposition to the government's plan to revise the labor law.
"That was because, like most workers in the manufacturing and service sector, relatively uneducated stevedores, seamen and truck drivers could not easily be controlled if they got aroused at a rally." Hanafi has been dubbed Indonesia's Lech Walensa, after the Polish unionist who led a labor movement that toppled the Communist regime and which took him to the presidency in the 1990s.
He was proud of the strong solidarity among workers and the peaceful rally inside the port thanks to close coordination by junior unionists.
In leading the labor movement in the transportation sector, Hanafi has preferred collective bargaining to staging massive rallies that had the potential to be hijacked by non-labor interests.
"We have to use their bargaining power in bipartite negotiations with managements in fighting for their interests. It is more effective and democratic to put them and employers in an equal position." The government and employers, said Hanafi, could no longer adopt a cheap labor policy in the reform era to attract more foreign investors, as had happened in the past.
"It would be better for the government to eliminate rampant corruption and red tape in the bureaucracy, revise the investment and tax laws, repair damaged infrastructure and enforce the law to provide certainty for workers.
"Insya Allah, foreign investors will come and invest here." Hanafi, who worked as a mechanic on cargo vessels for PT Djakarta Lloyd until 1976, cofounded KPI in 1973 with other senior seafarers.
After undergoing trade union training for a year at Cylde Cameron College in Australia in 1976, he was appointed as an ITF liaison officer in Indonesia.
In his capacity as secretary-general of KPI, he launched a series of training programs for junior unionists and workers in the transportation sector to improve their skills in their workplaces and in collective bargaining with their employers.
Under his leadership, the seamen's union networks well with ITF and their counterparts in developed countries. So far, a total of 400 junior unionists have been trained to improve their skills so that they are paid in accordance with international standards.
At home, he has encouraged all trade unions in the air, sea and land transportation sectors to improve their bargaining power in preparing collective labor agreements (PKB) with management.
He said stevedores had yet to sign a PKB with ship owners and port authorities because they were retained by port cooperatives on contracts and paid on a daily basis. "Stevedores are paid Rp 35,000 per day but are employed on average 15 days a month," he said.
Asked what his monthly income was, Hanafi said KPI paid him well because the trade union was well organized and strong financially. It had 35,000 members who paid about Rp 20,000 (about US$2) a month for their membership while the management contributed up to (Rp 150,000) per worker per month.
KPI has contributed 0.5 percent of funds collected from seafarers to ITF. "All unionists and staff are paid well," he said, adding he who was reelected to the top position in 2004, with his tenure valid until 2008.
Hanafi, born in the West Java town of Tasikmalaya in 1946, admitted to having "lost" his beloved wife with whom he has three children, because he spent almost all his time with workers.
"Upon my return from an ILO meeting in Geneva and an ITF gathering in London in 1997, she had left me a letter asking for a divorce. My children knew something was wrong in the relationship and accepted the divorce. I couldn't do anything to salvage our marriage because it was a matter of personal commitment. My wife remarried, and I did, too."