Jakarta – Almost 10 years after Indonesia ratified the ILO Convention and seven years after the freedom of association law was passed, the archipelago has more trade unions but less unionists.

The association law gave all workers the right to join a union, whether at a national or company level, and encouraged them to enter into collective bargaining agreements with their employers.

But many companies have ignored ILO Convention standards, including an employees' rights to negotiate labor standards – and this has resulted in fewer workers joining unions. The total number of company-level domestic labor unions currently reaches more than 11,000, with the number of national labor unions sitting at 146, Manpower Ministry data shows.

"But there is a paradox in labor union movements in Indonesia," executive director of the Trade Unions Rights Center Surya Tjandra said.

"The number of national labor unions was increasing so fast from only 45 in 2002 to more than 100 in 2005, while the number of their members decreased from 8.3 million to only 3.3 million," he said during a seminar on freedom of association Tuesday.

Surya said a top-down labor movement and conflicting interests among elite unionists was to blame. "Those two factors have caused many national labor unions to lose workers' confidence – and instead employees have set up their own union in their workplace," he said.

So far, there are four major trade unions, including the Confederation of All-Indonesian Workers Union (KSPSI), Indonesian Confederation of Trade Union (ICTU), Confederation of Indonesian Prosperous Labor Union (KSBSI) and Confederation of Indonesian Metal Trade Union (KSPMI).

But these four have been divided over the severance payment scheme proposed by employers and the government. The scheme would see companies exempt from paying severance payments to white-collar workers.

And labor unions can do nothing to help the thousands of dismissed workers at state enterprises and private manufacturing companies, including PT Great River and PT Tongyung in Bogor and Tangerang.

The New Order era under Soeharto saw only one labor union accepted and workers were not allowed to express their needs or wants. Security authorities were, back then, deployed to help settle industrial disputes.

Fauzi Abdullah, a unionist of the Sedane Labor Information Institution, said most labor unions "had no teeth in collective bargaining and (have relied) on the government's mediation in settling industrial disputes".

He also said elite unionists faced internal problems because their leadership had come into question.

Fauzi said labor unions should fairly elect their leaders and that different unions should work together to formulate and cement collective bargaining agreements.

"Also, labor unions should intensify their training programs to improve their members' negotiation skills," he said.