Indonesian Workers Ready to Weather Global Economic Storm

Tim Ryan of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center reports from Indonesia, where the global economic crisis is eerily familiar.

When the U.S. economy went over the edge in the middle of September, I had a horrible feeling of déjà vu. Except it wasn’t an illusion because I’d actually seen it before. Ten years ago, I was working with trade unions and labor activists all across Indonesia, where the Asian version of what’s happening now on the global level brought tremendous chaos and a revolution to this country of 220 million people.

Almost overnight, Indonesia’s economy dropped from a healthy annual growth rate of between 7 percent and 8 percent to a 15 percent contraction. I was the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center representative based in Jakarta. I was alone in Jakarta—my family had been evacuated during the May 1998 riots that resulted from the economic chaos and eventually forced the dictator Suharto from power.

Back in Indonesia last month, I had the opportunity to talk with workers in different industries. They were eyeing the global developments, especially the meltdown in the United States, with real apprehension—because they’d been through it already.

During a visit to Bandung, an important manufacturing city in west Java, I talked with Budi, a plant-level leader in a garment factory that turns out products for Nike and Adidas (Indonesians frequently have only one name, and names have been changed here to prevent retribution against workers). Budi told me:

Our biggest problem today is the increase in outsourced and contracted labor.

In Indonesia, “outsourced” means workers are hired through labor-recruiting agencies, and contract workers are hired on fixed, short-term contracts, over and over again, in violation of Indonesian labor laws.

Rulita, who also works in a Bandung garment factory that manufactures items for K-Mart and other well-known brands, talked about the discrimination women workers face. In addition to the outsourcing problems, there are different pay levels for men and women. Employers’ refusals to honor maternal leave laws put women in an even more difficult bind, she said.

One of the lessons of the Asian economic crisis of 10 years ago is that it shook things up—it significantly changed the dynamic in Indonesia. The chaos brought on by the crisis created new opportunities. The banking industry, once controlled by Suharto cronies, had to reform to conform with international banking norms. Dissident trade unionists and political activists who had been intimidated, jailed and tortured were freed, and new unions sprang up across the country. The media was released from its straitjacket.

Today, the Solidarity Center in Indonesia works on a variety of issues—educating workers about their legal rights, promoting international core labor standards, helping workers in the electronics industry form unions, and working with unions and other organizations to combat human trafficking, a huge problem in Indonesia.

It seems clear to me from my conversations with workers that even though people in Indonesia are worried about the global economic crisis, they have made real progress in the past 10 years. Unions are stronger and their members are better educated. This time around, Indonesians are ready to weather the storm.

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