JAKARTA, Indonesia – Riot police officers fired tear gas and water cannons at the Indonesian capital on Thursday as they tried to disperse a large crowd of workers and protesters protesting a new law reducing protection for the environment.
In cities and towns across Indonesia’s vast archipelago, hundreds of thousands of workers took part in the third day of a national strike against deregulation laws. Sound trucks were dispersing protest messages as workers stepped out and rode in motorbike parades. Union leaders condemned parliament and President Joko Widodo for taking the step forward.
In the center of the capital, Jakarta, protesters gathered in defiance of the ban on the city, which had gathered during the epidemic, and tried to march on the presidential palace. Some people threw stones at police and set fire to the city center, setting fire to a police outpost and two transit stops. Police said authorities detained more than 800 people in Jakarta, while national strike leaders distanced themselves from the violence and said the city’s protests were not linked to labor action.
Strikes across the country have been largely peaceful, although in some cities protesters clashed with police. Organizers said the protests took place in more than 60 locations, ranging from Ashe province in the west to Papua province 3,000 miles east. They estimated that about one million people joined the outsourcing quouts every day, although that figure could not be verified.
Opponents of the new law, a 505-page comprehensive measure that amends more than 75 laws, say the rich benefit by allowing companies to reduce workers’ pay, end day-to-day work and hire contract workers instead of permanent employees. Most likely it will affect women, they say, by allowing companies to eliminate paid maternity and menstrual leave.
“Many presidents use the same name,” said Irmavati, 37, the leader of a factory strike in East Java. Not that they voted for him. “They are killing us with ubiquitous law.”
Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, has the largest economy in Southeast Asia, but competes with some of its neighbors for foreign investment, especially Vietnam, a centralized communist state that can move quickly to offer land to investors That in itself is a disadvantage. And incentives.
Indonesia, a democracy since the fall of the Suharto dictatorship more than two decades ago, holds the world’s largest direct presidential election every five years. But its decentralized government is notoriously bureaucratic and difficult to navigate.
The coronavirus epidemic has hit harder than any other region of the country, infecting more than 320,000 people and leaving an estimated six million out of work, and already adding two million unemployed. The government expects the economy to contract this year for the first time since the Suharto era.
Bahlil Lahdia, head of the government’s Investment Coordinating Board, said the new law would make it easier for job seekers to find work, including another three million people entering the annual workforce.
He said 153 companies are ready to invest in Indonesia once the law is implemented, creating many new jobs.
“This is the law for the future, not the past,” he said. “There have been complaints from industrialists that it is difficult to get permits due to overlapping rules, expensive land and expensive workers.” “This job creation law is the answer.”
President Joko, a one-time furniture maker and mayor, makes himself a man of people whose interests are at heart. As president, he has focused on economic development, particularly building roads, ports and airports.
But many opponents of the deregulation seem to have been betrayed by Mr. Joko, who won a second term last year, and are urging him to issue a regulation repealing the most damaging provisions of the law.
Workers say their views were not considered during the deliberations.
The deregulation law has also been opposed by environmentalists who say it would exempt many projects from environmental review, derail efforts to burn rainforests and add to climate-changing carbon emissions.
Disappointment became apparent after the law was approved by parliament, and the #pindahnegara – acronym – promise to “go to another country” in Indonesian – trended on Twitter. Posted tips on how to migrate to the headlines.
Women like laboratory analyst Ms. Irmavati are taking the lead in the protests because they believe the law will hurt women the most.
The leader of the Indonesian Metal Workers Federation, she says the law could cut her salary by more than half. She helped organize a walkout of about 1,100 workers – almost all of them women – which began on Tuesday at the Fish Canary PT Aneka Tuna in Persurun Regency in Indonesia.
At a rally outside the factory, he denounced the law, specifically the provision allowing companies to provide special paid leave for women.
“When they heard my speech, they all shouted,” Ms. Irmavati said referring to the workers by telephone. “The most burdensome are the subtraction of menstruation and maternity leave. As a woman, it also brings me tears. “
He asked, “Where is his conscience?”
Last year, protesters staged a mass protest against another universal bill that would have made sexual relations between unmarried people illegal – effectively legalizing gay relations – and Mr Joko succeeded in withdrawing the move.
But it is unlikely to persuade the president to withdraw this year’s bill, as it was Mr. Joko and his government who pushed for the law to be approved, ending Monday with its easy route. Opponents are urging Mr. Joko to either not sign the law or use his power to enforce the controversial provisions.
If Mr Joko does not bear fruit, the union will go to court and try to stop the implementation of the law, said Syed Iqbal, president of the Indonesian Trade Union Confederation and leader of the strike.
On Batam, Jafri Rajab, a machinist at an island near Singapore, helped about a third of the workers at PT Digito Messindo, who built machines for cigarette production, walk for about three days.
He worries about the potential loss of his job as the economy sinks and there is a provision in the law that would allow companies to reduce their sporadic salary from 32 months to 19 months.
“There is no worker who is not afraid of layoffs, especially in this time of the Kovid-19 epidemic,” said Mr Jajafari, who has three children, including a one-month-old baby. “Indonesia is in recession. It is very difficult to get a new job. ”
They are also concerned about small workers who will not be able to find a job that provides pension and other benefits as soon as they join the workforce.
“We also hope that as many investors as possible come to Indonesia, but do not represent workers’ rights.” “The government exists to guarantee the rights of every citizen to achieve a decent civic life.”
