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Workers take to streets on May Day to demand jobs law abolition
North Jakarta May Day rally organizer Usman said the jobs law was the number one enemy of workers because it had increased the disparity between the rich and poor.
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Demonstrators march with flags and banners during a rally in Jakarta on May 1, 2024, commemorating International Workers’ Day. (AFP/Yasuyoshi CHIBA)
T
housands of protestors took to the streets on International Workers’ Day, or May Day, on Wednesday to demand the repeal of the controversial Job Creation Law, which has been accused of undercutting a wide range of workers’ rights and protections.
Some 50,000 workers reportedly participated in the Wednesday march in Jakarta, while thousands of others attended similar rallies in Bandung, West Java; Semarang, Central Java; Surabaya, East Java; Makassar, South Sulawesi; as well as Aceh and Pekanbaru in Sumatra.
Although proponents of the jobs law championed it as a way to attract investment and boost the country’s economy by streamlining bureaucracy, the Confederation of Indonesian Workers’ Unions (KSPI) argued that it also impinged upon workers’ rights and welfare.
The controversial omnibus law, passed in late 2020, either reduces or completely eliminates workers’ rights to severance payments beyond a basic allowance. It also further relaxes legal requirements for the outsourcing of labor and allows certain industries, including micro and small enterprises, to forgo regional minimum wage requirements.
“Since the law came [into effect], workers’ purchasing power has declined by 30 percent and inflation in industrial cities has risen to 2.8 percent despite the average wage increase of 1.58 percent,” KSPI chairman Said Iqbal said, as quoted by tribunnews.com.
“All of us workers are just covering the expenses of the top 1 percent [wealthiest people in the country],” he added.
The relaxed rule on outsourced labor, he continued, had encouraged institutions to lay off full-time employees, increasing the unemployment rate in the country.
