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resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s attempt to lure in investors by providing certainty in the labor market is facing fresh challenges after workers across the country took to the streets to protest the new annual minimum wages recently announced by regional administrations.

The government has attempted to guarantee certainty for businesses by issuing a new wage-setting policy. But the new formula has come up with minimum wages that have failed to satisfy unions.

In late 2015, Jokowi issued Government Regulation (PP) No. 78/2015 stipulating that the calculation of minimum wage increases must take into account the current fiscal year’s inflation and gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates.

As a consequence of this new formula, the minimum wage increase for 2017 is pegged at 8.25 percent. Labor activists, meanwhile, have insisted that the new wages should be based primarily on the basic cost of living, which, if taken into account, should result in an increase of around 25 percent.

“Some provinces have reported their new minimum wage level for 2017 to comply with the new regulation. We’re still waiting from others,” the Manpower Ministry’s director for wage payments, Andriani, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

As a result, workers in different locations across Indonesia took to the streets to protest the 2017 minimum wages and the new formulation that created them.

In Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, Indonesia’s fourth most-populated province, workers from different unions protested the province’s 2017 minimum wage, which has been set at Rp 1.96 million (US$150) per month. This represents an 8.25 percent increase from the Rp 1.81 million listed for this year.

Willy Agus Utomo from the North Sumatra Labor Movement Alliance (ABBSU) said his union had urged North Sumatra Governor T. Erry Nuradi to increase the minimum wage by at least 25 percent.

He said workers would stage a much bigger protest should the provincial administration refuse to fulfill their demands.

“We can paralyze the industrial sector in North Sumatra if the administration continues to play down our demands,” he told the Post.

In East Java’s capital of Surabaya, which is the country’s second-largest city after Jakarta, workers also protested the new minimum wage.

East Java Governor Soekarwo announced that the minimum wage for 2017 would be Rp 1.39 million. Speaking before hundreds of protesting workers, the governor argued that the amount was fair.

All-Indonesia Labor Union (SPSI) East Java chairman Achmad Fauzi, however, claimed that the new minimum wage was too low and thus should be revised.

The South Sulawesi provincial administration, meanwhile, has set the 2017 minimum wage at Rp 2.5 million per month, representing an 11.1 percent increase from the current wage of Rp 2.2 million.

Based on the 2015 regulation, the new minimum wage should have been set at Rp 2.44 million, but South Sulawesi Manpower and Transmigration Office head Agustinus Appang denied that this constituted a violation of the central government’s policy.

“The minimum wage we announced today does not exceed the government’s regulation. We just rounded the figure up,” he said.

By contrast, it is businesspeople who have rejected the provincial administration’s decision.

“Based on a survey by employers and workers on the current economic situation, the new minimum wage in South Sulawesi should be Rp 2.06 million per month. We submitted the results of the survey to the governor, but it was not taken into consideration,” said the Indonesian Employers Association’s South Sulawesi chapter head, Latunreng.

Worker demonstrations also reportedly took place in Jambi, Lampung and Riau.

Last year, soon after the regulation was announced, major protests took place in different cities. As many as 26 protesters were arrested by the police for disrupting public order. (adt)