Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – A special agency would protect Indonesian migrant workers and oversee the labor export program under a decree expected to be issued next month by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman Suparno said the planned agency would begin operations in September. Its establishment is required by the 2004 law on labor protection.
"The special agency, directly under the supervision of the President, will take over the role the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry has long played in overseeing labor export procedures," he told a seminar on the protection and empowerment of migrant workers Tuesday in Jakarta.
Following the establishment of the agency, Erman said, the ministry would focus on drafting regulations to enforce a 2004 law concerning the protection of migrant workers, and designing labor training programs to improve workers' skills.
The ministry's Directorate General for Overseas Labor Development would be liquidated after the agency was formed, he added.
The ministry has been under fire for the extortion of migrant workers before they leave and after they return to Indonesia. Erman was also criticized for taking a series of steps to reform labor export procedures before the establishment of the special agency.
"We support a sweeping reform of the labor export procedures but the move should have been made by the special agency to avoid conflicts of interest," said Husein Alaydrus, chairman of the Association of Labor Export Companies.
"All sides should let the new agency reform the current export procedures, including designing a new export and protection system," he added.
The manpower ministry under Erman simplified the labor export procedures so that workers could obtain their documentation in only 12 days, rather than three months, before leaving to work overseas.
Erman also made plans to issue so-called "smart cards" to workers to simplify their banking transactions, and appointed a new consortium to provide an insurance scheme for migrant workers.
Under the planned reforms, Indonesia is expected to be able to send around one million workers abroad annually, with about Rp 25 trillion (about US$2.7 billion) projected to flow back into Indonesia. Currently, around 350,000 workers go overseas annually.
Husein said labor exporters were suspicious of the involvement of Erman's National Awakening Party (PKB) in the planned insurance consortium and in the transportation of workers to their home villages from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport