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View all search resultsAs emerging economy, ‘high time’ for Indonesia to improve worker protection
Indonesia is being encouraged to improve the protection of millions of workers employed in factories and plantations nationwide.
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Standing for the rights: Members of labor unions in West Java stage a rally in front of the Gedung Sate heritage building in Bandung, West Java, on April 23 to call for improved wages and working conditions. (Antara/Novrian Arbi)
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senior government official is warning that the safety of Indonesian workers is poorly protected, underlining that companies have continued to neglect safety standards in their operations. The statement was triggered by a recent fire at a lighter factory in Langkat regency, North Sumatra, which killed 30 people.
The human rights director general at the Law and Human Rights Ministry, Mualimin Abdi, said the incident in Langkat revealed the minimum, if not poor, implementation of human rights in business in Indonesia.
“Human rights implementation in business is relatively a new issue here, but cases of companies’ negligence toward the rights of workers have happened for a long time,” Mualimin said at the release of results of research conducted by the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) on Indonesia’s business and human rights development on Thursday.
The research was undertaken as a follow up to the launch of the United Nations Guiding Principles (UNGP) on Business and Human Rights in 2011. As an emerging economy, Indonesia is being encouraged to improve the protection of millions of workers employed in factories and plantations nationwide.
Mualimin said the government had attempted to increase the companies’ commitment to worker safety, “but a number of regulations on workers’ safety are not yet coherent and still overlap each other”.
A human rights expert at the Medan State University, Majda El Muhtaj, called for a serious investigation into cases of company negligence over worker safety.
“What happened in Langkat is just the tip of the iceberg regarding safety misconduct by companies in Indonesia,” Majda, who is the editor of the ELSAM report, told The Jakarta Post over the phone on Friday.
