The Indonesian workers and the 'spirit of reformasi'

As we publish this article which was written at the end of last year there have been important new developments in Indonesia. Mass strikes of public transportation drivers started on Monday in a number of cities. Street protests continue against the IMF sponsored cuts in subsidies which have provoked a price hike. The price of some gasoline products increased by 22%, of electricity by 15% and telephone charges by 6%. This simultaneous price hike has had the effect of uniting all the different sections of workers, peasants, fishermen, students, street sellers, housewives etc. Even the bosses' organisations have come out against those price hikes because they fear - correctly - that the workers in the factories will demand that their wages be adapted to the new increase in the cost of living. Although still relatively small these protests could become more massive in the coming days. Particularly important is the call for a nation-wide strike for Thursday January 9 (today) by a front of 23 different trade unions which could halt industry in many parts of the country. These recent developments confirm the analysis we developed in the article below. We explained that there would be a succession of qualitative changes in the working class movement of Indonesia over the coming period. (January 9, 2003)

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Once again we have reached the end of yet another tumultuous year for Indonesia. Time has come to focus on one of the most under-reported and neglected aspects of the multiple crisis of the country: the labour struggle. The Bali massacre in October has catapulted Indonesia to the frontline of world news only to present the country as being in the grips of Islamic fundamentalist groups.

This is a deliberate attempt to obscure the upsurge of the working class movement since the fall of Suharto. The development of the unions and the growing number of demonstrations and strikes, although in very difficult conditions, is the most palpable evidence of the profound changes in the social psychology of the masses. Despite inevitable ups and downs this trend has not stopped.

One example will serve to illustrates this. A labour researcher from Central Java recently confessed his surprise to me about a little conflict in his village, a strike in a handicraft factory where mostly old women are employed. "If you want to find the most exploited among the exploited just drop by one of those factories" he told me. "Mostly uneducated and illiterate, those women also live in fear of superstitious beliefs unscrupulously exploited by the owner of the factory. That man also happens to be the local kyai or Islamic cleric in the village. Local villagers have a great respect and fear for such people. And then suddenly without any apparent reason came the strike. Those old Javanese women refused to work. They sat down in silence, bowing their head, whispering to each other and demanded a wage increase from their miserable monthly 100.000 rupiahs (or US$ 9 to 10). The kyai came and started to shout at them and threatened them. But to no avail. From silent whispering the women started to lift their heads and looked straight at this little powerless man gesticulating amidst his striking workforce and they smiled. They started to raise their voice, which according to Javanese tradition is a very rude thing to do, especially when it comes from old women speaking to a Muslim cleric."

"This is the real spirit of reformasi!" he exclaimed. "It is not dead. Yet on the campuses the democratic movement seems out of breath, but amongst the workers and the peasants it is still going strong." The 'spirit of reformasi' about which so many army generals, bourgeois politicians and investors complain is a profound process of awakening of the masses where they are slowly becoming aware of their own power and are abandoning their old beliefs and adopting new ones. It would be more correct to speak about a 'spirit of revolusi', an early and still immature revolutionary spirit which is being shaped.

Indeed the mole of the revolution continues to dig its way into the consciousness of the masses. Starting in the universities it has moved on to all the layers that make up the 'people': from the workers in industry protesting against factory closures to plantations workers demanding a better status, from construction workers refusing to become casual daily labourers to teachers protesting about delayed pay, from the street sellers in Palembang refusing to be ousted from the marketplace to bus drivers striking for higher wages, to the sugar peasants mobilising against the foreign import of cheap sugar. "Every day there is a demonstration or a strike" complains the editorial of the Indonesian paper Kompas.

Faced with a never ending crisis the poor, the workers and the peasants have no choice but to struggle. Of the 80 million or so workers a half are unemployed or underemployed. The textile sector is being strangled. Especially the footwear industry is in bad shape. According to the State Investment Coordinating Agency, investment figures are continuing their plunge downwards. Investment during the first eight months of 2002 fell by US$2.25 billion, or almost 40% compared with the same period in 2001.

Indonesia is also the only country reported by the United Nations Conference of Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to have suffered a flight of capital every year since 1998. In 2001, $3.2 billion left the country, almost the same figure as the $3.55 billion of new investment planned, though not yet realised, for 2002. Despite official GDP growth forecasts of 3,8 to 4% this year, it is no exaggeration to say that productive investment has continued to collapse.

The Megawati government has added to the misery of the workers by withdrawing rice subsidies from hundreds of thousands of poor families and by recurrent price hikes for electricity, fuel and telephone bills.

Faced with mounting social defiance, many of the local governments have increased minimum wages although still below the real inflation rate. The increase in labour conflicts really worries the international bourgeois. Via the IMF and their respective national chambers of commerce in Indonesia they have been putting on the pressure to get two new labour bills passed which would curtail the collective strength of the workers and their unions, but would also limit the already weak safeguards against the bosses. This is what the Japanese and South Korean Chambers of Commerce have also been doing, while at the same time threatening to massively withdraw their investment. The closure of the Sony factory in the capital Jakarta is the latest example of this blackmail.

The new labour laws will result in:
1. Eliminating job security through legalising and lengthening the labour contract systems.
2. Releasing the Indonesian government from responsibility to safeguard workers' rights. The government will no longer be involved in the resolution of conflicts between workers and employers. Instead it will authorise employers to resolve the problem as they see fit. As workers are in a far weaker bargaining position in relation to the employers this will mean that the employers will win and the exploitation and repression of the workers will continue.
3. Abolishing workers' right to strike - a basic right and means of struggle for workers - making it a criminal act. Workers who go on strike may be jailed for six months and fined 10-50 million rupiahs.
4. Reduce labour issues to "industrial problems" and ignore the broader questions. Worker's problems are not just based upon the day-to-day problems in the work-place but are closely linked to government policy and pressure from the international financial institutions. Workers will be forced to adhere to government policy.
5. Prevent trade unions from defending workers rights. Trade unions will no longer be authorised to defend workers and legal cases will instead be defended by lawyers.
6. Eliminate maternal and menstruation leave which are a basic right of workers.
7. Discriminate against trainees who will only receive 80 per cent of a full wage while producing the same amount of goods and working for the same length of time as regular workers.

The threat of the implementation of these labour laws has introduced a new dynamic to the workers' struggle in Indonesia. It has resulted in the formation of a front of some 20 organisations, mostly unions, under the umbrella of a Workers' Front Against Oppression, or KAPB. This front succeeded in organising the biggest national and coordinated labour protest since 1965 in mid September. Although still small compared with the level of mobilisation of South Korean, Philippino and South African workers, it represents a turning point. Even more important is the fact that these workers' protests were jointly scheduled with major peasant protests against the fall of the local sugar price, which was the result of the liberalisation measures imposed by the IMF and WTO and the very cheap foreign imports.

Joint workers' and peasants' protests mark a new stage in the development of this vital unity between all the oppressed layers in Indonesia. Up to now the increase in workers' protest had mainly a local character and did not reach beyond the immediate problems. Dissatisfaction lacked a national and political focus that could raise the struggles to a new level.

Interestingly the government's response was to postpone the imposition of those new bills with the intention of reviewing some articles in the light of the bosses' and unions' criticisms. The Megawati government senses that it is dangerous to confront the workers directly in such a way. On the other hand there is growing pressure from foreign investors (from Japan and South Korea in particular) to radically strip the workers of their 'overprotective social legislation'. The remarkable thing is that the government is thus failing to satisfy either the bosses or the unions. By doing so Megawati is being cautious in not creating a national focus for the latent dissatisfaction that exists among the workers.

It does not need much in Indonesia to set the whole country on fire again. Crises at all levels of society continue to accumulate. Bourgeois rule, or its legitimacy, is being challenged by the escalation of scandals in the judiciary, in parliament and among the military. The social breakdown of the country is making life more and more intolerable. The recent power cuts in Jakarta, putting the whole of this city of 10 million people in the dark, combined with the terrible water shortages, are corroding ordinary people's trust in the oligarchy. Very few people hold the 'elite', as Indonesians call them, in any esteem.

During the 1970s, the 1980s and a large part of the 1990s, capitalist rule in Indonesia was corrupt, exploitative and brutal but it went hand in hand with so-called 'progress' (job creation, large-scale public works etc). Now the continued rule of the capitalist oligarchy is not only feeding more corruption but it is undermining the basic conditions of civilised life.

This year has seen the workers movement - although still very divided and small - reach a new stage of development through coordinated action on a level not seen for decades. Moreover, the workers have demonstrated an extraordinary resilience at this stage of the revolution where it seemed to have lost its momentum. These are some of the conditions which will give the Indonesian working class the capacity to rise to new levels in the next period.

December 21, 2002