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Comment on the IPTN strike

Source
Tapol - October 15, 1997

I see this strike as the first action in a wave of actions that could hit the Suharto regime as a direct result of the crisis engulfing the Indonesian economy. Now that the IMF has been called in, new demands will be made on the regime with regard to pet projects of the Suharto Family and cronies.

The IPTN and its boss, Dr B.J. Habibie, who runs all the country's so-called strategic (ie arms) industries, has been in financial difficulties for months, despite special funding provided for several aircraft projects at the discretion of Habibie's patron, Suharto. Even money set aside for reforestation has been syphoned into Habibie projects, amid fierce controversy from the environmental lobby.

Other favoured projects are likely to be hit, with resultant redundancies, as well as the many banks and financial institutions that will be forced into bankruptcy. The result could be a wave of actions among the better paid sections of the labour market.

But the IPTN strike is particularly significant. Here is what many regard as the most prestigious company in the country. Many may have thought that the work force enjoy excellent conditions, many of them being highly-qualified engineers, trained for the country's most advanced hi-tech company. It turns out that they have many grievances against their employer, ranging from discriminatory practices favouring those in higher wage brackets to a virtual pay freeze for many years.

Perhaps even more significant is the fact that their boss happens to be a man with well-known political ambitions, who is angling for nomination as the country's next vice-president. He runs the Muslim intellectuals association, ICMI, which was set up by him to advance the interests of Muslim intellectuals within the bureaucracy. His latest intrigue to win the nomination for vice-president was the decision, which is widely known to have ooriginated from him, to confer a fifth star on three four-star generals, Suharto, the ailing General Nasution, and the founder of the Indonesian army General Sudirman who died fifty years ago. The armed forces were apparently not pleased with this meaningless gesture.

To see Habibie in conflict with his workforce is just part of the amazing shift in perspectives that is taking place in today's very fluid political situation in Indonesia.

Of course, IMF policies will hit poorer Indonesians far more harshly as they begin to bite and the manufacturing industries are hit by the current economic crisis but the first blows are likely to be felt by better-paid workers who until now have by and large not been involved in industrial disputes. [Carmel, TAPOL]

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