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Balance facilitating investment with efforts for decent work
The Manpower Ministry records that up to mid-2017, there were 9,413 labor rights violations. What is happening is that profitable investment is coming in at the expense of the exploitation of people.
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Labor with the People Movement (Gebrak) that consist of labor and student alliances march toward the House of Representatives Building in protest of the omnibus bill on job creation in Jakarta on Monday, Jan. 13, 2020. (JP/Moch. Fiqih Prawira)
P
resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has stressed the importance of foreign investment to improve the economy since assuming office. Like his predecessors, the President strongly believes investment will improve people’s welfare.
In Jokowi’s first term, his administration prepared 16 economic policy packages to facilitate investment. Then-vice president Jusuf Kalla also supported the policy to reduce labor costs; while for decades tripartite negotiations between the government, business sector and unions had determined the annual minimum wage, a formula was determined to set minimum wages, thereby abandoning the lengthy negotiations.
However, those steps failed to adequately increase investment inflow. Therefore, at the beginning of his second term, the President took a giant step, introducing a planned omnibus bill that would summarize over 70 acts in one bill called the draft bill on employment creation.
The underlying spirit of the bill is to create an investment ecosystem that essentially simplifies licensing and investment requirements, reduces labor costs, improves ease of doing business, eliminates criminal penalties in cases of labor rights violations, simplifies land procurement and eases procedures for government projects such as ending the requirement of an Environmental Impact Analysis (Amdal) for projects perceived to be low risk.
The substance of the draft bill clearly shows the government’s main interest: winning over investors and employers as reflected by Jokowi’s many public statements.
Ironically, the statements on his social media platforms and speeches are delivered amid reports of land conflicts, environmental damage and industrial conflicts.
For the sake of investment, there have been unequal struggles for land ownership and land tenure between capital owners and landowners. Throughout the year 2018, the Foundation of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI) handled 300 agrarian conflicts between people and corporations, while the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA) advocacy group recorded 279 agrarian conflicts during 2019.
