United We Stand?: Indonesia’s Labour Movement Needs to Consolidate the Gains of 1998

By Michele Ford

President Suharto's resignation in May 1998, and the reforms that followed, changed Indonesia's industrial relations landscape forever.

Within a matter of months, the old one-union system was abolished and workers were again free to organise, as they had been before Suharto came to power. It had been a long time coming. Although some workers had tried to organise independently in the 1990s, it was decades since the Indonesian government had recognised their right to freedom of association. The question is, how ready and able were workers to seize hold of new opportunities, and where are the unions headed now?

Ford looks at the new era, the history of unions and labour under the Suharto regime and the impact that has had on workers ability to organise. Many obstacles exist and unions have not developed as much as they might have in the rapidly altering society because of divisions within and between organized groups of workers. However gains have been made and the time is ripe for promoting common interests.

(Inside Indonesia; no. 86, April-June 2006)