2019
Between 2009 and 2015, sections of Indonesia’s nascent trade union movement attempted to enter the political fray. Many political and trade union activists hoped that an independent workers’ party could emerge. These hopes floundered, and key trade union leaders instead ran for political office with existing parties, even endorsing authoritarian and anti-human rights policies. Max Lane presents a sobering assessment of these trends, largely focusing on comparatively strong areas of trade union organisation among the industrial belt on the outskirts of Jakarta. Trade union coverage in Indonesia is a mere 3 percent of the labour force, or 5 million members. This low union density is a product of both political and historical factors. The independence struggle against Dutch colonisers had resulted in a strong influence of radical nationalism and the left in Indonesia before 1965. Then President Sukarno’s attempts to allow the Indonesian Communist Party into government resulted in a pre-emptive wave of repression and mass killings by the army and Islamist organisations. These effectively destroyed the left and ended Sukarno’s rule. The subsequent “New Order” dictatorship of President Haji Mohamed Suharto and his GOLKAR party (Partai Golongan Karya [Party of Functional Groups]) lasted until 1998.
