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Court upholds jobs law as labor unions stage rallies
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Still contentious: Students and members of the Workers and People Movement (Gebrak) hold a rally on May 21, 2022, near the Arjuna Wijaya Statue in Central Jakarta to demand that the Job Creation Law be revoked. (Antara/Asprilla Dwi Adha)
T
he Constitutional Court (MK) on Monday rejected petitions to revoke President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s controversial government regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) on job creation, amid mounting protests from labor unions.
The Perppu in question was signed by Jokowi in December 2022 to resuscitate the Job Creation Law, which was declared "conditionally unconstitutional" by the MK in 2021 because it used the unrecognized omnibus method to revise multiple laws at once and was deliberated with minimal public participation. Despite mounting accusations of attempts to circumvent the 2021 MK ruling regarding the issue, the House of Representatives passed the Perppu into law in March of this year, effectively making it permanent legislation.
Dozens of labor unions and civil society groups including the Indonesia Welfare Labor Confederations (KSBSI), Indonesia Farmers Union (SPI) and the National Labor Union Federation, have filed at least five separate petitions to the MK to challenge the Perppu.
The plaintiffs generally argued in their petitions that the issuance of the Perppu was rushed and lacked meaningful participation from the public, saying that there was no urgency to publish such an “emergency regulation” by the President. They also said that its drafting process reflected the "executive-heavy" and "authoritarian" styles of the legislation process during the New Order era.
The court on Monday held that the President has the right to interpret the degree of emergency that warranted the issuance of a Perppu and it was up to the House to determine if the President has a sound reason for lawmakers to pass the Perppu into law.
Read also: House passes Perppu on job creation despite public opposition
In the ruling, the bench also said that the quick deliberation process of the Perppu and its passing into law was justifiable as policymakers sought to mitigate a looming global economic slowdown following the COVID-19 pandemic, growing inflation and the war in the Ukraine that could potentially affect the country’s economy.
