The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.24           June 22, 1998 
 
 
Working People In Indonesia Press For More Rights, Relief From Crisis  

BY NAOMI CRAINE AND PATRICK BROWN
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Some 25,000 striking workers marched 12 miles from Sidoardjo, East Java, to Surabaya June 8 to press demands against their employer before the provincial legislative council. They were attacked by police and military forces near the city border. Thirty workers and three cops were injured and a police motorcycle burned before the workers forced their way through the barricade and continued to the city center, the Jakarta Post reported.

The workers were demanding that the Maspion Group, a company that produces household goods, provide transportation and meal allowances.

There are almost daily reports in the media here of strikes breaking out as workers fight for some relief from the economic crisis that has engulfed this country. Many workers have been laid off or seen their real wages plunge since the financial crisis began last July. The 80 percent drop in the value of the Indonesian rupiah against the U.S. dollar has sent the prices of imports skyrocketing.

The strikes and other labor protests are an expression of the political floodgates that have opened in Indonesia since the May 21 resignation of President Suharto, as working people and others push to use the space they have been able to open for the first time since the 1965 military coup.

In the capital city, 2,500 workers walked out of a shoe factory June 8 in response to intimidation by two cops who have been employed as executives for the last seven years. The workers are accusing the factory manager and personnel manager, Maj. Gatot Budisutopo and Maj. Budyono from the National Police headquarters, of forcing workers to quit without proper compensation. "We'll continue to strike until the two police officers are dismissed from our company," Pratigto, the workers' representative, told the Jakarta Post. The workers are also demanding wage bonuses and adequate safety equipment.

According to students in the city of Bandung, between 1,000 and 2,000 textile workers at the Kasta factory in the nearby town of Ujungberung held a one-day strike June 6. Like the Maspion workers, they are demanding the company pay for their meals and transportation.

The same day, Militant reporters met a number of bus workers who had organized a strike against the state-owned PPD bus company three days earlier to win an increase in their take-home pay, which often falls below the Jakarta minimum wage. They also protested the fact that money deducted from their pay for pensions, health insurance, and social security had not been accumulated.

Through the strike and a mass rally at the company's head office on June 3, the workers forced the Minister of Transportation to agree that PPD would pay them the money owed. Workers told the Militant that if they had taken such action during Suharto's rule they would have faced abductions by the military.

Pickup in strikes
Laid-off workers are also mounting protests. On June 3, several hundred Wal-Mart workers protested their dismissal with a rally here at the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, which provides legal representation. Wearing Wal-Mart T- shirts sporting the slogan "Our people make the difference," the workers cheered as speakers announced the support of students from the University of Indonesia.

These struggles follow a nearly year-long lull in work stoppages, according to Teten Masduki, head of the labor division of the Legal Aid Foundation. While accurate figures are hard to come by, he estimated the number of strikes in Indonesia averaged 13 per year in the mid- to late 1980s. Then, from 1990 to 1995, the number of work stoppages grew every year. There were more than 1,000 strikes in 1995, and 900 the following year. This momentum ground to a halt after June 1997, when the financial crisis sweeping Asia hit Indonesia. Workers tried to adjust to the devastating impact of "the crisis," as everyone here refers to the economic collapse, and the widespread layoffs it triggered.

The economic catastrophe spurred the wave of student protests that began a few months ago. At first the students were mostly protesting the government's austerity measures, which raised the price of many staples. The regime imposed these as a condition for receiving loans from the International Monetary Fund. The protests soon took on an explicitly antigovernment character, with students demanding that Suharto step down.

May 12 marked a turning point. Police and military forces attacked a student protest just outside the walls of Trisakti University in Jakarta that day, fatally shooting four students. This was the spark that ignited the deepening social tensions into riots in the capital May 13-15, as well as in Solo, Surabaya, Medan, and other urban centers.

Thousands of students began an occupation of the House of Representatives May 18 demanding Suharto resign, and won support from workers and farmers who heard about the action. Mass demonstrations took place in Yogyakarta, Bandung, and other cities May 20, the holiday marking the start of the Indonesian struggle for independence from Dutch colonial rule 90 years ago.

In face of this situation, Washington and a growing list of ruling-class figures in Indonesia, including prominent military officers, began to call for Suharto to step aside. He did so May 21, and vice president B.J. Habibie, a longtime supporter of Suharto, took office as president.

`New Order' based on workers' defeat
Suharto, an army general, came to power based on one of history's worst defeats for the workers movement internationally. In October 1965, military officers launched a crackdown and reactionary mobilizations against the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and other workers organizations. Politically disarmed by the Stalinist misleadership of the PKI, more than 500,000 workers and peasants were massacred over the following months.

Suharto called his regime the "New Order." The only legal political organizations were the ruling Golkar and two opposition parties that never ran candidates against Suharto. Golkar functions not as a political party but as an umbrella group comprising various social organizations, including the only legal organizations of workers and farmers. Civil servants-who include a wide range of workers-were often pressured to vote for Golkar.

The military is a pervasive component of the government setup. A portion of the seats in the People's Consultative Assembly, which elects the president, are allocated directly to the officer caste. The police are a division of the armed forces. The armed forces own businesses and land, and the individual members of the top brass control much more.

The Habibie government cannot easily hold this structure together. There are increasing rifts within Golkar, including calls for the resignation of its chairman, Harmoko.

Beginning to lose fear
The June 6 opening of the military trial of 18 cops charged in the killings of the four students at Trisakti University gave a glimpse of the fact that many people are beginning to lose their fear of the military. About 500 Trisakti students traveled by bus to the military court on the outskirts of Jakarta to witness the trial. Most sat in the yard surrounding the court, unable to enter the packed room, listening to the proceedings over loudspeakers. Hundreds of local residents and students from other campuses poured into the compound, in front of the military police and groups of soldiers from several military branches. It was the first time anyone could recall such an attendance at a military trial. The Trisakti students brought banners demanding, among other things, that the military commander at the scene be held responsible for the killings, not just the police who are accused.

The Habibie government has been compelled to grant a range of democratic concessions, including lifting bans on the formation of unions and political parties, in hopes of containing the widening political and social demands raised in many protest actions - captured in the popular watchword reformasi (reform).

Minister of Information Muhammad Yunus announced June 5 he was rescinding the measure under which his office could arbitrarily revoke the license of media publications. The ministry can still suspend a newspaper's license for a "certain period of time," however.

Ending "corruption, collusion, and nepotism"-often referred to by the Indonesian acronym KKN-is a focus of many protest actions. Suharto, his family, and close associates amassed billions in industry, banks, land, and other capital over the last 32 years. More facts about his fortune are reported daily in papers that would not have dared to publish such articles even three weeks earlier.

In Bali, a week of protests by thousands of students and others forced the entire provincial legislature to agree to resign June 8. The protesters had initially demanded that the legislators sign a statement refusing to recognize Habibie as president. When they refused, the demonstrators demanded the lawmakers themselves resign. Similar protests have taken place in other provinces.

Some pro-government forces have struck a nationalist pose. Dozens of pro-Habibie students from the Indonesian Development Youth Movement rallied outside the U.S. embassy in Jakarta and the U.S. consulate in Surabaya June 5. According to the Jakarta Post, the demonstrators accused Washington of funding efforts to force Suharto's resignation and pushing the IMF to impose austerity measures on Indonesia.

The economy continues to contract. Import activities have dropped more than 80 percent over the last few months. Stocks of rice, the country's staple food, are reportedly sufficient for three months only.

Amid this crisis, banks from imperialist countries are trying to stabilize Indonesia as a source of profits.

The government has agreed to appoint nine international investment banks to assist in the "partial privatization" of 12 state-owned companies, ranging from toll road operator PT Jasa Marga to plantation company PT Perkebunan Nusantara. In one deal already announced, Netherlands-based Ispat International will buy 49 percent of PT Krakatau Steel for $400 million, a price described in the daily press as "relatively low."

Imperialist concerns over further social rebellions mark the continued uncertainty about the International Monetary Fund's $43 billion loan package. The Suharto government's agreement with the IMF stipulated that subsidies on all commodities except rice must be eliminated by October 1. Price rises under this program sparked the protests in May.

Now Beddu Amang, chairman of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog), has claimed that the IMF agreed that "if we are not able to scrap the subsidies" on basic commodities, "then we don't have to." Striking a pose typical of the Habibie government in its current efforts to establish some popular credibility, Amang said, "We have to help our people."

Working people are seeking ways to resist the impact of the economic crisis. This takes many forms in addition to strikes. The same day in Majalengba, West Java, a fish pond belonging to the bupati, or provincial chief, was reportedly raided by unknown people who took more than 400 pounds of fish.

And in Bandung, about 300 market vendors organized a caravan to city hall to protest the local government's failure to provide adequate services at the market where they work and plans to remove the market for a bus station. After an initial attempt to keep the vendors away from city hall, officials relented and allowed them to rally in front of the building while a delegation entered to present their demands.  
 
 
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