Jakarta – Most labor unions have failed to attract members due to skepticism among workers, a leading unionist has said.

"We think that the current confederations of laborers do not really carry the aspirations of the grassroots workers. They compromise too much with the government," a senior official at the Labor Demand Alliance, Sahat Antony Hutabarat, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Almost 200 national-level labor unions are registered with the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry.

Only three of these, the Confederation of All-Indonesian Workers Unions, the Indonesian Workers Unions Confederation and the Confederation of Indonesian Prosperous Labor Unions (KSBSI), have played large roles in the labor movement, Sahat said, with the 2003 Labor Law an example.

"Those confederations were involved in the discussion of the law from the beginning, but the results show that the law is not really labor-oriented because it includes articles on outsourcing and contract labor and one-sided dismissal," he said.

He added that outsourcing labor and one-sided dismissals were not matters of concern in Indonesia before the law was issued. "Therefore we intend to establish a new confederation that we hope will be a medium for the aspirations of grassroots laborers," he said, adding that the confederation was expected to be established in early 2008.

Separately, chairman of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Association Miftah Farid said that those confederations were only fighting for the interests of certain labor groups.

He said the fact that the welfare of many local laborers was still unprotected was proof that the big unions had not done their utmost to fight for their rights.

"Therefore, we have established a migrant workers association," he said, although he added that this did not mean they would not join one of the confederations.

"We are still investigating which one if really fighting for the sake of the laborers because we do not want the bigger labor unions to take advantage of us," he said.

He said they also wanted to be sure that any unions they were affiliated with were free from any other interests.

The number of national workers unions has increased rapidly since Indonesia ratified the ILO Convention in 1998 and issued the 2000 Law on Freedom of Association. There are currently 146 national labor unions.

Meanwhile, KSBSI head Rekson Silaban said that the mushrooming of labor unions was a temporary phenomenon.

"We are in a phase of euphoria after the government issued the freedom of association law," he said, adding that eventually the number of labor unions would decrease. "The unions that do not have a significant vote in fighting for their members' aspirations will be left behind," he said.

Besides, people had to realize that the more labor unions there were, the more their negotiating position was weakened, Rekson said. He added that labor unions should strengthen themselves so that they could be involved in tripartite organizations, which would make their position more significant.