Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta - May 1, 2008 was a national holiday not for working Indonesians, but for Christians, in the observance of the day of Ascension of Jesus Christ.
Despite its long avoidance of declaring International Labor Day a public holiday here, the government did not bar workers from celebrating on Thursday.
Unlike in industrial countries, the celebrations here were fairly exclusive and did not attract much public attention, giving an impression that Labor Day celebrations were the sole domain of some 25 million low-ranking workers employed in factories and some five million migrant workers overseas.
The celebration's exclusivity was made possible in partially with the use of euphemistic words like karyawan (employees) and pegawai (officers), instead of buruh (laborers) – which has led middle and high-level workers in private and state-owned companies to perceive themselves as no longer "labor", classifying themselves instead as white-collar workers. By definition, however, all paid and unpaid workers, including the white-collar workers and civil servants, should define themselves as labor.
Unlike previous years, however, this year's Labor Day saw unions and workers organizing a peaceful mass gathering Thursday at Proclamation Monument in Jakarta. The group were protesting rampant outsourcing, contract-based recruitment and low pay which have all contributed to Indonesia's job insecurity and alarming rates of unemployment and poverty.
Indonesian migrant workers also gathered at Victoria Park in Hong Kong, protesting red tape which has been imposed on them by the Indonesian Consulate (HK) and manpower supplier agencies.
Aside from its historical context, Labor Day commemorations are very relevant to Indonesia and cannot be ignored by the government and employers in their commitments to protect workers and improve social welfare.
It is perhaps not necessary to add another holiday to commemorate Labor Day, but the Government should consider its current path toward creating good governance, broaden its horizons and repair the poor labor and human rights conditions in this country.
From a policy perspective, the government has regulations covering only 33 percent, or some 34 million members of a work force of some 108 million (under Law No. 13/2003 on labor and Law No. 39/2004 on labor export and protection) in the formal sector, while the majority 67 percent, (or 74 million) including 10.5 million jobless, have been left unregulated and unprotected.
Some 64 million workers in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), agriculture and fishery sectors have had no certainty of their future since they are employed without core labor standards, including daily minimum wages, working hours or social security programs.
The government still ignores rife outsourcing and recruitment of contract-based workers, a new strategy used by employers to reduce their labor costs to a minimum. It also failed to take action against several footwear and garment factories which last year dismissed large numbers of workers without severance pay.
Local governments under the regional autonomy cannot facilitate the signing of (bipartite) collective labor agreements (PKBs) because so far only 11,000 of 170,000 companies have had PKBs with their workers.
Only some 68,500 companies have protected their staff of eight million with social security programs (which are compulsory under Law No. 3/1992 on Jamsostek – Workers Insurance Scheme). This means the majority of 28 million workers employed by some 90,600 companies in the formal sector have been left unprotected.
We want the government to bear in mind its constitutional task of providing jobs for the (jobless) people, taking care of the poor and the orphans, and respecting workers' rights.
Generating jobs has its importance not only for socioeconomic and sociopolitical reasons, but mainly because people's identity and dignity lies in their work.
In this context, the government should be ashamed of its failure to halt the rampant extortion of low-paid migrant workers who take their own initiative to seek jobs overseas, and should create jobs for workers upon their arrival home.
It's important for the government to attract foreign investors to generate more jobs and to ease the unemployment problem. It should not blame the poor investment climate on the harsh labor laws because many other decisive factors such as double tax policy, damaged public infrastructure and legal uncertainty are all needing repair.
It is no accident that Labor Day and National Education Day are commemorated in two successive days because the education is vital to improve workers' skills and, consequently, their social welfare.
This is the main reason why the 1945 Constitution recommends the government allocate 20 percent of the state budget to the education sector, not only to educate the people, but also to improve their competitiveness in entering a liberalized labor market.
The more skilled the workers, the more they will get paid and the more their dignity will be respected.
[The author is staff writer at The Jakarta Post.]