Fears of massive traffic gridlock across Jakarta because of a labor demonstration failed to materialize on Wednesday as unions and police ensured that the rallies did not spread beyond the industrial estates on the capital's outskirts.
Sr. Comr. Rikwanto, a spokesman for the Jakarta Police, said the rallies by the striking workers were conducted peacefully and there were no major security concerns.
"We had prepared a joint police-military force of 15,000 personnel in anticipation of events turning rowdy, but in general it all proceeded peacefully," he said.
He added that by the police's count, there were around 50,000 workers participating in the rallies in Bekasi, Tangerang and Depok, but all of them had dispersed by 4 p.m., thus preventing the rush-hour gridlock that many commuters had been dreading.
Sr. Comr. Chairul Nur Alamsyah, the Jakarta Police's head of operations, said there was only one reported incident of violence on the day.
"The incident occurred in Tanjung Priok, when some demonstrators broke the wing mirror on a container truck," he said. "But the local police and the workers' unions have sorted the matter out and everything's settled. No one will be arrested over it."
On Tuesday, unions said they were planning to mobilize up to 23,000 demonstrators for rallies in Jakarta, but on Wednesday they said they had decided to focus their demonstrations in the outlying industrial estates.
Andi Gani, president of the Confederation of All-Indonesia Workers Unions (KSPSI), said none of the unions affiliated with his organization had planned rallies in the city center. "We won't mobilize the masses in Jakarta. We're concentrating in the areas around the workers' workplaces," he said.
Small groups of a few hundred people each picketed the House of Representatives and the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry. He also apologized to the general public for any inconvenience that the rallies caused.
"We apologize for the traffic jams as a result of our actions and we hope the public can understand that this is about workers demanding an end to the outsourcing system and low wages," he said.
Later in the day, Andi persuaded thousands of demonstrators to drop their threat to block the West Cikarang toll road, the main artery to the industrial estates in Bekasi, Cikarang, Karawang and Cikampek.
"There is no sense in breaching the toll road, and no call for workers to turn to anarchy," he told demonstrators at the EJIP industrial estate in Cikarang.
Elsewhere around the country, though, the rallies were not as orderly. Unions said they mobilized more than two million workers nationwide for protests at 80 industrial estates.
In Bogor, Surabaya and Medan, the rallies caused severe traffic jams as the workers took to the streets there, while in Batam a group of 25,000 workers picketed the mayor's office. (JG/AP)