By: Bimo Ariyan Beeran )*
The celebration of Mayday or labor day is the moment that labor elements have been waiting for. Nevertheless, workers are asked to maintain a conducive situation and be aware of provocations for anarchist demonstrations Rejecting the Ciptaker Law on Mayday.
The celebration of Labor Day 1 May 2023 or Mayday will be a special moment for labor groups. Most recently, the President of the Labor Party, Said Iqbal also has plans to bring as many as 100 thousand workers to the State Palace, Jakarta. This action was carried out in the framework of commemorating May Day or Labor Day on May 1, 2023.
Some of the issues in commemorating May Day are demands to repeal the Omnibus Law on Job Creation, repeal the parliamentary threshold of 4% (percent), then pass the draft Law on the Protection of Domestic Workers, reject the Health Bill, agrarian reform and food sovereignty. Previously, Said Iqbal had also boasted about holding mass demonstrations and a national strike.
Of course, from demonstrations to national strikes, it must be carried out with certain conditions. This requirement is to be able to guarantee that the interests of the rest of society are not disrupted as a result of demonstrations and strikes.
Apart from that, the fact that the strike has actually had a big impact on many groups, not only for the workers themselves, for companies, but also for the country.
It is known that the first impact is that there will be material losses for the company, because of course the demonstrations and strikes will result in a significant loss of working hours so that the production process will be severely hampered.
Then the second impact will lead to political and economic instability. This is actually very counterproductive to what the workers say, namely their actions to be able to restore the improvement of the national economy, even though in fact this is not the case.
This is because the Job Creation Law which they protested in itself was a concrete effort by the Government of the Republic of Indonesia (RI) in mitigating the existence of a global economic crisis, which would also have great potential to escalate into a national economic crisis.
However, the existence of the Job Creation Law is actually rejected by many workers, whose refusal uses a number of demonstrations, which are very vulnerable to continuing anarchism and provocation. Not only that, but it has clearly led to political and economic instability in the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI).
The existence of economic instability that occurs due to demonstrations and work strikes is actually still correlated with the initial point regarding the loss of working hours of workers, so of course the production process will be greatly hampered, which is precisely capable of hampering national economic growth itself.
Another point of demonstrations and also strikes carried out by workers in the context of rejecting the Job Creation Law is that it will actually hinder the entry of investment from investors, whether from within the country itself or from abroad, from being able to enter Indonesia.
How could it not be, because of course the investors will see and continue to monitor how the conditions in the area they want to invest in, when there is still economic instability there, will make the investors themselves continue to be careful and ultimately reluctant to invest and it is clear will disrupt the investment climate.
With the action of these workers, it also hinders the export activities of the company and the country’s export activities. In fact, export activities themselves are one of the very, very profitable things for the country, but all of them will be hampered by demonstrations and national work strikes.
In fact, in fact the ratification of the Job Creation Perppu into the Job Creation Law in the context of employment itself is clear evidence of the strong commitment that the Government of the Republic of Indonesia has to continue to be able to provide workforce protection and also business continuity to be able to answer all challenges of development and employment dynamics.
The Minister of Manpower (Menaker RI), Ida Fauziyah explained that one of the points that is also often brought up in moments of demonstrations by workers is regarding wages. According to him, there have been improvements and adjustments to the calculation of the minimum wage, which continues to take into account economic growth, inflation up to a certain index.
Also included, in the Job Creation Law itself there is an affirmation of the obligation to implement the wage structure and scale by employers for workers or laborers who have worked for 1 (one) year or more. There are also revised references in the article governing the use of the right to rest for which the wages are still paid in full, as well as related to the benefits of the Job Loss Guarantee Program.
So, of course, all the demonstrations and also the strike action carried out by the workers in the context of rejecting the Job Creation Law itself is actually very detrimental to themselves. Not only because demonstrations are usually very vulnerable to provocations and anarchic actions, but in fact the legal products they oppose actually accommodate and improve the welfare of workers in Indonesia.
)* The author is a contributor to Nusantara Reading Room