•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Earlier this month, there was a disturbing opinion piece in your paper regarding traffic disturbances caused by labor protests (Yohanes Sulaiman, “When It Comes to Taming Labor Unions, Indonesia Can Learn a Lot From Reagan, ”Jakarta Globe, Feb. 3). One need not be a leftist to shudder at biased insensitiveness. This struck me — a student of free-market economics and securities law — as historically uninformed. I believe the esteemed writer must carefully consider his own history before embarking upon such workers bashing.

First, the esteemed writer overlooked the long plight of workers who suffered “severe repression in the name of socially responsible economic unionism” during the New Order, as argued by scholar Michele Ford in 2005. After the banning of left-wing unions and the annihilation of the communist-linked All Indonesia Center of Labor Organizations (SOBSI), Indonesian labor activism was castrated by single-union policy.

This leads to my second point: that although Reformasi saw an influx in the formation of unions, 10 years later, there is still no coherent workers representation at the national political level. Here I also note scholar Dan Slater’s scathing 2004 analysis of the cartelization of Indonesian politics, which further asphyxiated the workers’ voice. Therefore, the esteemed writer’s suggestion that the government “learn to act with determination vis-a-vis workers” is oddly juxtaposed with New Order “heavy-handedness.”

Third, the argument about the judiciary is simply hard to follow. The writer basically argues that the unions would have “submitted” to an Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) victory but for the Indonesian judiciary’s bad image, hence the case for judicial reform. This argument is again insensitive and shows a misguided conception about legal systems in general. Even in the United States lawsuits are long and expensive. It is hard to imagine unions having a chance against well-organized and well-financed bodies such as Apindo.

Finally, the esteemed writer’s comparison of the judiciaries of Indonesia and the United States is just unfortunate. If the integrity, efficiency and consistency of our legal system would be half that of the United States, Indonesia would be a totally different country.

My message is simple: unless one genuinely considers our workers’ pain-riddled history and current disenfranchisement, one should not conduct such virulent worker bashing. As we embark upon reforming our labor code in order to make Indonesia more attractive for much-needed investment, genuine history lessons become even more necessary.

Sigfried S. Looho, law and business graduate student at Cornell Law School and the London School of Economics