This essay introduces the politics of the Indonesian trade union movement today, including the crucial factors from before 1998 that have helped create the terrain of today's movement. The essay concentrates on the most visible overt political activities of the most politically active unions. In the preface, I point out that these most active unions represent a minority of union members and an even smaller minority of the workforce, who are mainly not organized into trade unions. However, it would be wrong to imply that workers outside the main unions discussed in this essay are not engaged in industrial activity. Any perusal of the mushrooming number of websites and Facebook groups reporting on industrial activity reveals that there is ongoing workplace disputation. Disputes are happening every week. However, the reporting via these websites and groups provides only a more or less arbitrary coverage of what is happening, depending on the contacts and capacities of the people behind each group or website.

The newness of the labour scene, emphasized in this essay, means that both the mushrooming of workplace unions and sources reporting their activities are fragmented and dispersed. There is no centralized or systematic collection of data or reports. This also reflects the reality that organized labour itself is still neither centralized nor organized into a unified system. Labour itself is fragmented and dispersed. The fact that a massive proportion of the workforce is employed in enterprises with fewer than twenty employees also means that day-to-day disputes between employees and employers in those enterprises may not take the form of normal union disputes. These smaller enterprises number in the hundreds of thousands.

In these circumstances it is extremely difficult to make any general conclusions about trends in underlying levels of industrial disputation or tensions.

What can be identified are the most explicit manifestations of strongly organized union activity. Even here, the most visible are those activities that insert themselves on to the national political stage. In this essay, the focus has been on the activities initiated by the KSPI/FSPMI and the spectrum of smaller dissident unions. Most observers consider the KSPSI the biggest union, inheriting the majority of the membership of the New Order era single union, but its activities have not significantly inserted the union on to the national political stage.

On 1 April 2017, thirteen trade unions, having formed a coalition, signed a “Political Contract” with two candidates in the Jakarta gubernatorial elections. These thirteen unions then gave their support to Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Uno, candidates nominated by the Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) and GERINDRA, the party headed by the 2014 presidential candidate, Prabowo Subianto. These unions included the Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Indonesia (KSPI), Federasi Serikat Pekerja Metal Indonesia (FSPMI), and Serikat Pekerja Nasional (SPN), among others. The KSPI and FSPMI leaderships had been supporting the GERINDRA-PKS coalition since the 2014 presidential elections. Between 2010 and 2013, the KSPI and FPSMI had been the vanguard of a series of annual campaigns for increases in the minimum wage and ending the widespread use of labour hire (called “outsourcing”).

The points included in the Political Contract covered wages, labour hire, housing, public transport, unemployment social insurance, education, the Jakarta Bay reclamation, the status of teachers, health insurance and workers cooperatives. The one point made on wages policy was as follows:

Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Una won the elections—for many reasons beyond the wages issue—and were sworn in as governor and vice-governor on 16 October 2017. Two weeks later, on 1 November, the new governor signed-off on the minimum wage for 2018. He did not conform to the wages policy point in the Political Contract but determined a wage increase based on Regulation 78/2015, not higher. The new minimum wage was determined as Rp3,648,035, an 8.7 per cent increase on the previous year. The unions were asking for Rp3,917,398.

As a consequence of this decision, the thirteen unions held a press conference and declared that they were withdrawing their support for Anies Baswedan. The president of the KSPI and FSPMI, Said Iqbal, even compared Baswedan unfavourably with former governor and now prisoner Basuki Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, saying that the latter was a more honourable man than Baswedan. During the gubernatorial campaign, Iqbal had been very critical of Purnama on a range of issues, and had merged his unions with major protests that were calling for Purnama to be arrested for humiliating Islam.

The manner in which the New Order fell, the policy changes towards trade unions that occurred in 1998 under President Habibie, and the new economic situation impacted on the preexisting labour politics to change their terrain fundamentally. Most obviously, the policy of having only a single union ended, allowing the formation of a range of unions independent of each other. However, the change was more significant than that. New processes were set in motion that, while unfolding slowly and with difficulty, are already dramatically transforming trade union politics, and potentially may change national politics in general.

The Fall of the New Order

The thirty-three years of authoritarianism under Suharto did not end as part of a planned succession. Suharto departed the scene accompanied by significant turmoil and rejection of the old authoritarian order. The slogan of the process that brought him down was: Reformasi! (Reformation), implying a deep reform to policy and methods of rule. Withdrawal of the armed forces from politics, in particular from political control (repression), and withdrawal of laws curtailing political freedoms were central demands of most protests, along with a demand to end corruption and cronyism. Between June 1996 and May 1998, hundreds of thousands of people participated in street mobilizations and other actions. While many were students, the vast majority were from the working class, employed, underemployed or unemployed.

Suharto's being pushed into resignation after an extended period of oppositional mobilization involving large numbers of the working population meant that there remained a dynamic contributing to ongoing worker protests. Despite the fact that the existing large union, the FSPSI, was anti-mobilization, that the SBSI was cautious about it, and that the PPBI was small and more an organizing centre than a consolidated member-based organization, worker protests continued in the period immediately after the fall of Suharto. Such protests were carried out either by workers at single factories organizing independently or, in the majority of organized cases, by the PPBI. The press reported strikes and protests in most months from June through to December even in 1998. In fact, there was a significant increase in such activity compared to the previous year.

By early 2013—or even by the time of the Declaration of Industrial Harmony—the KSPI/FSPMI, under the leadership of Said Iqbal, appeared to be preparing for greater involvement in electoral politics. This was not a turn from apolitical unionism to political unionism, as some have argued,1 as Indonesian unions have always been intensely political. This was the case under the New Order when the FSPSI was integrated into the political system and campaigns supporting the New Order. It was the case with the unions after 1998, whose leaders either sought connections with political parties or engaged in lobbying and campaigning to influence government policy and legislative outcomes through the parliament. The new trajectory that became increasingly clear throughout 2013 and into 2014 was characterized by a systematic attempt to increase direct representation of the KSPSI/FSPMI in legislative bodies and later in executive positions, as well as a conscious alignment with a specific political bloc and perspective as, I will argue, a substitute for increasing the militancy and breadth of industrial campaigning—and not as its complement.

These developments since 2013—called by the union itself “Go Politik!”—were not the FSPMI's first experimentation with electoral politics. In 2009, FSPMI members, with national leadership approval, stood for several different parties in the province of Kepulauan Riau, including for the municipal council in the city of Batam. This was a reversal of union policy on electoral participation that occurred after a change in national leadership, that is, when Said Iqbal replaced Thamrin Mossi as president of the FSPMI in November 2006. According to Ford,2 there had been considerable discussion and efforts on the electoral front in Batam as early as 2004 and intense discussion in the national leadership.

The way in which FSPMI and other union members became candidates was very messy. There was an unofficial organization of FSPMI members in Batam, Jas Metal, who had been lobbying on this issue for some time. Some candidates had Jas Metal support, some put themselves forward without any organized backing. Other candidates were on a list issued by the FSPMI national leadership, which included Said Iqbal himself. As candidates for national, provincial or national parliaments needed to be on party lists, the union, Jas Metal and union members entered into talks with a range of parties.

The number and diversity of trade unions has more than simply increased dramatically since the fall of Suharto in 1998. The union terrain has been completely reshaped. At the same time, it should be noted from the outset that the percentage of the workforce actually organized in unions remains minuscule. The Indonesian workforce is usually assessed at around 150 million people—more if child workers of one kind or another are included. There are various figures for union membership, but it is unlikely that it would reach 5 million or 3 per cent of the workforce, and is likely much less than that. Indonesian society remains fundamentally unindustrialized. Petty commodity production of one kind or another dominates in the provision of both goods and services. Perhaps more than 90 per cent of workplaces have fewer than 20 employees, and are mostly unorganizable in the current atmosphere.

This still means, however, that there are between 5 and 10 million people—probably closer to 5 than to 10—working in enterprises with a big enough workforce to make their unionization practical in a situation of their being only a limited number of experienced union organizers. According to 2016 Ministry of Manpower data, there are now 14 trade union confederations, 112 federations and at least 7,000 workplace unions. Some unions are registered, for at least some of the time, with the Ministry of Manpower; some have local registration.

It would not be inappropriate to say that unions mushroomed in their thousands since the fall of Suharto, but neither would such a statement provide a true picture of what has happened since May 1998. The 2016 Ministry of Manpower statistics cite a total union membership of just over 2.7 million. We can assume that this figure is based on membership size claimed by registered unions, there being no way to check the reality of active membership. Furthermore, these 2.7 million members are divided among at least 112 federations.

There are also many other limitations flowing from both the sociological and socio-economic situation and from the country's political history. The political legacy from before 1998 both sets the framework for the trade union sector today and has helped to form the leadership terrain.

This essay introduces the basic, visible politics of the Indonesian trade union movement, with a focus on the period 2010–14. To provide this introduction clearly, it also presents an overview of the politics of trade unions before the end of the New Order and the legacies from the New Order, which constitutes the terrain of the current situation. Indonesia has experienced two major upheavals affecting trade unions, in 1965 and in 1998. It is impossible to understand current trade union politics without understanding those events and their legacies.

To provide this overview, I have primarily relied on documentary sources. Where possible, I have given references to English language material. To assist understanding of some developments, I have quoted at length from interviews, statements and articles by union figures, translating or using available translations. These include newspaper reports, material produced by union and activist groups and studies by commentators and academics. During the last twenty-five years, in the course of writing on Indonesian politics, I have also established communications with a range of people active in the union movement, most of them on the left of the political spectrum. I have been careful to refer to official publications of unions with which I have had no personal contact as well as to their statements to the media.

One argument I present here is that the emergence of trade unions after 1998 is a process still at its beginning. Even at the beginning of this process, there are more than fourteen trade union confederations, scores of federations, and probably thousands of new, or renewed, workplace unions. Many are registered only at the provincial or district level. It is impossible at this point to know exactly what is happening among the leaderships or memberships of these many unions. This essay concentrates on an overview of union activity that is visible as a factor on the national political stage. This means concentrating on unions whose memberships are probably a minority of the total union membership and an even smaller minority of the total workforce. This minority, through highly organized activity, has made a visible impact on both labour politics and national politics.

From Consolidation to Campaigning

The years 1998–2010 were a period of reorganization, recomposition and consolidation for the larger confederations. The unions that evolved from the dissident unionism and radical oppositional politics of the 1990s had a more fluid experience. There is less clear data available regarding the other, less political, confederations, federations and unaffiliated unions. For the larger confederations, especially the KSPSI and KSPI, and also for KSBSI, recomposition and consolidation had more or less been completed by 2010. Their structures, leaderships, international affiliations and mechanisms for collecting dues had settled. Their week to-week work at the factory site, training and public advocacy were all ongoing—constrained primarily by their emphasis on consolidation following the 1998 end of the old system.

By 2010 a new post-consolidation situation arose. How were they to take their development further? The first campaigning issue for the new consolidated unions was the Bill on Social Security Providers (BPJS Bill). This was to establish the provider mechanisms following the passing of Law No. 40/2004 on a National Social Security System (SJSN Law). The SJSN Law required that all Indonesians be covered by social security through five mandatory universal programmes: healthcare benefits, occupational accident benefits, old age risk benefits, pension benefits, and death benefits.

The SJSN Law was passed in 2004, and implementing legislation for insurance programmes was supposed to be passed by 2009. By 2010, the law that would allow execution of the policy by reorganizing the positions and responsibilities of insurance providers had still not been passed. The Yudhoyono government had kept deferring presentation of legislation. Finally, legislation emerged from the parliament itself, but still serious consideration of the bill was deferred.

The bill promised what amounted to an increase in the social wage that could improve the material conditions of many people, including union members. It was an issue with national implications, and could be addressed as such. A coalition of confederations, federations and other unions was formed, along with the NGO TURC, to campaign for the BPJS Bill to be passed. This was the Komite Aksi Jaminan Sosial (KAJS—Action Committee for Social Security). The term Komite Aksi immediately conjured up an image of the mobilizing committees that had mushroomed during the 1990s in opposition to the New Order.

During the first months of 2018, the prospect of non-aligned unions using the space left open to them as the larger union confederations consolidated their alignments with the two major electoral blocs looked like it might be realized quicker than expected. KASBI (Kongres Aliansi Serikat Buruh Indonesia; Indonesian Trade Union Congress Alliance Confederation), KPBI (Konfederasi Persatuan Buruh Indonesia, Confederation of United Indonesian Workers), Federasi Sedar (Serikat Buruh Demokratik Kerakyatan; Populist Democratic Trade Union) and two other non-aligned federations agreed to host a joint political conference to which other non-aligned unions, as well as nongovernment organizations and political groups would be invited. The conference took place in April 2018, shortly before the annual May Day trade union mobilizations.

Before analysing the conference and its immediate aftermath, including its apparent stall, it is useful to look at some of the immediate context beyond the trends discussed in an earlier ISEAS Perspective.

There appeared to be two trends developing into 2018 that helped push the union leaderships in this direction. Neither of these were new trends, but they evolved to a higher level, impacting on the thinking of the unions.

First, the best resourced and organized and, until 2013, the most activist confederation, the KSPI (Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Indonesia; Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions), with the FSPMI (Federasi Serikat Pekerja Metal Indonesia; Indonesian Metal Trade Workers Federation) as its vanguard, further deepened its alignment with the 2019 presidential candidacy of Prabowo Subianto. KSPI/FSPMI had openly supported Prabowo in 2014 and had maintained the relationship since then, despite one of its leaders also standing as an independent candidate in a district election in 2017. In late 2017 and into early 2018, rumours began to spread that KSPI/FSPMI, still under the leadership of chairperson Said Iqbal, would again announce its support for Prabowo at its rally on May Day. By March, there were news reports of Iqbal's still positive assessment of Prabowo.

At the same time, rumours strengthened that the other major union confederation, the KSPSI (Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Seluruh Indonesia; Confederation of the All-Indonesian Workers Union) under the leadership of Yorrys Raweyai would announce support for President Joko Widodo also on 1 May, May Day.