Two months after his inauguration as Manpower and Transmigration Minister, Muhaimin Iskandar, the chairman of the National Awakening Party (PKB), is still learning more about his new portfolio while focusing on programs to create more jobs over the next five years. He shared his plans for his first 100 days in office with The Jakarta Post's Ridwan Max Sijabat on Wednesday.
Question: What are you doing about the abuse of Indonesian migrant workers overseas?
Answer: The frequent abuse of domestic workers occurs not only overseas but also at home.
Abuse and extortion also occur during their recruitment from their home villages, upon their return at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, and during their trip home to their villages.
The Manpower and Transmigration Ministry and the National Agency for Labor Placement and Protection (BNP2TKI) are still reviewing all existing regulations and procedures on the recruitment and training of prospective migrant workers, to ensure their competence prior to their departure.
We are also working with the National Profession Standardization Agency (BNSP) to draw up competence standards for maids, gardeners, and construction and plantation laborers, which will be used by profession-standardized institutions (LSPs) to certify prospective migrant workers.
Why place strong emphasis on certification?
According to our studies, the abuse of migrant workers has a lot to do with their incompetence in their workplace.
Many workers are sent without adequate training or competence, they cannot do their job effectively, they cannot communicate well with their employers, and worse, they do not know what to do if their wages are withheld or if they get into a dispute.
If workers are given proper skills and communication training before their departure, they can do their job professionally and defend themselves against exploitation, wage suspension and ridiculous or unscrupulous government officials in their trips from and to their home villages.
What about the growing number of fake certificates floating around?
We have set up a task force to raid training centers and migrant-worker embarkation points at all international airports, and to take action against LSPs and labor exporters involved in issuing fake documents, including certificates, for migrant workers.
What will you do to fix the tarnished image of Indonesian migrant workers overseas?
We are working with regional administrations and security authorities, including the police and immigration office, to crack down on local and foreign brokers and transnational syndicates to prevent migrant workers from working abroad without the necessary documents and competence.
The abuse of migrant workers in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia has been going on unchecked because most workers have entered these countries illegally and find themselves trapped in exploitative jobs.
Many enter Malaysia through brokers, without documents such as passports or work permits, and many others go in on a three-month tourist visa, which they then overstay.
Many people also go to Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage passport and visa to seek a job there.
We are preparing a one-stop service center to issue documents for migrant workers.
And finally, the government will continue lobbying host countries to implement ILO standards in treating migrant workers, as we are now doing with Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The government is also considering the 1990 UN convention on the protection of migrant workers and their families, and will ask host countries to do likewise.
What are you doing to improve labor conditions at home?
I have sought input from all officials in seeking to revise labor policies, particularly the 2003 Labor Law and the 1992 Social Security Law.
Employers and labor unions are also committed to revising the labor law to seek win-win solutions to crucial labor issues such as outsourcing, casual and temporary workers, and higher severance and service pay for laid-off workers.
This is important in our efforts to create harmonious industrial relations in industry.
What about the exodus of workers to the informal sector?
Promoting micro finance in the informal sector is a temporary solution to the problem of high unemployment, which reached 10 million this month, and the prolonged negative impacts of the global economic meltdown.
Jobs in the informal sector must be regulated in a bid to maintain the quality of jobs and the minimum wage, and provide welfare for workers.
We are optimistic that with the estimated 5 percent economic growth in 2010, the government will be able to create 1.2 million jobs and up to 2 million annually with the expected 7 percent economic growth from 2011 through 2013.
Are your expectations realistic, given with the low quality of human resources in the country?
It can be achieved in phases.
With the increased education budget of 20 percent of the state budget, the government will gradually improve the low quality of human resources by encouraging students in junior high to go on to vocational schools, to provide them with greater competence when entering the job world.
Education is really an investment whose fruit the nation will harvest in the next decade or two.
The government will also revive 148 training centers to train job seekers and ask companies to train their workers to improve their productivity.
