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Mochtar Pakpahan: victim of an anti-union regime
On 13 August, 1994, the chairperson of the Indonesian Workers for Prosperity Union (Serikat Buruh Sejahtera Indonesia, SBSI), Dr Mochtar Pakpahan was arrested by the Medan Police. Mochtar was later tried and sentenced to four years. In May, 1995 in a surprise move Mochtar was released after nine months. The International Labour Organisation and the US State Department both had called for Mochtar be released.
The chief of the Supreme Court, Adi Andojo Soetjipto, said the release of Muohtar was very much due to international pressure. "So whether we like it or not, Mochtar has to be released. If we extend his time in gaol, we'd be attacked like crazy from overseas," he was quoted in the news weekly Gatra, 27 May, 1995.
Andojo went on to say that Mochtar won't be organising any more demonstrations: "We need special co-ordination with the security apparatus to make sure he doesn't engage in any untoward behaviour." In the meantime, over 60 other SBSI organisers remain in gaol, including the chairperson and secretary of the Medan branch of the SBSI. Zoe Reynolds sets out below the background to these events and some of the thinking of Mochtar Pakpahan.
"In normal countries the dispute is between the employer and the union, but in Indonesia it is between the government and the union." This is how gaoled union leader and lawyer, Mochtar Pakpahan, sums up his trial and incarceration.
In his 50-page defence document, The People Protest, Pakpahan exposes the extraordinary level of corruption in his country. He explains how workers are forced to accept wages well below the cost of living, so companies can pay massive commissions to security forces, the government and its bureaucracy. And he reveals how authorities are prepared to use whatever violence or repression is necessary to protect their ill-earned gains.
In April, 1994, 24 factories shut down as an estimated 25,000 workers took to the streets. They were demanding a wage rise, freedom to organise and an inquiry into the suspicious death of one of their colleagues. The action got out of hand, frustrated workers smashed factories and businesses, racial violence flared and the angry crowd turned on a Chinese national, killing him.
Speculation on how the protest turned nasty is on-going. There is evidence that government intelligence may have infiltrated the crowd and led the racial attacks. It is this interpretation that the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions has adopted.
But the Suharto Government blamed the Indonesian Workers' Prosperity Union (Serikat Buruh Sejahtera Indonesia). The only nation-wide, independent union, says it covers around 200,000 workers in factories, offices, clubs, street stalls, bars and brothels from West Sumatra to East Timor.
The full weight of government security forces -- helicopters, shock troops, tanks and tear gas -- crushed dissent. Shop stewards disappeared from their homes, workers and unionists were tortured and interrogated, the mammoth year long trials got under way.
But as is also customary in a country where free speech is restricted, the accused turned the tables on the government in court. Pakpahan used his defence to accuse the government of breaching its own constitution, international law and human rights. He also found the government guilty of massive and endemic corruption.
As chairperson of SBSI, Pakpahan has accepted responsibility for last April's demonstration. But he insists that he knew nothing of its planning and has distanced himself from the racial conflict and violence that ensued.
The Medan riots were, in his own words, a tragedy. The 'undisciplined' action of SBSI local officials is a timely lesson to all unions. It has provided the government the excuse they have been waiting for to come down hard on SBSI.
But a far bigger crime, Pakpahan declares, is the inhumane conditions that Indonesians labour under. Most people with jobs in Indonesia work long hours for a below subsistance wage. Often they do not even get that.
"Since the outset, the New Order Government has adopted a wage system based on minimum physical needs," Pakpahan told the court during his trial last year. "In Jakarta this now comes to Rupiah 4000 a day. The government asks employers to pay only Rupiah 3100 a day, or 75 per cent of the minimum. "So according to the government system, Indonesian workers need no more than animals. Indeed, it appears Indonesian workers are being used as animals."
Labour costs, Pakpahan says, make up only 8 per cent of production costs. It is the security forces, government and the bureaucracy that siphon off up to 40 per cent of production cots in commissions and other payments. On top of that, Pakpahan claims, they get between 10 per cent and 50 per cent in shares -- either free or at reduced prices.
This eats into business profits. It is one reason why companies are reluctant to pay even the minimum legal wage of about $2/day.
"In the construction industry," Pakpahan explains on page 10 of his defence, "about 30 per cent or 40 per cent of the project budget goes into the hands of officials, bureaucrats and the security forces.
"Their shares total up to 50 per cent in nearly all construction initiatives. Shares are also made out in the names of their families. These are called silent shareholdings ... "Except where it is the official's family (a relative of the president, minister or governor), who owns the company tending, businesses cannot expect to get a project, unless they pay commissions."
The payout, Pakpahan says, begins with officials of the National Planning Bureau, the departments of tax, labour and industry, the Investment Coordination Bureau etc, and in the case of imports/exports, Customs. It continues all the way down to the governor, the mayor, village administration, religious and sporting bodies. And that is just the bureaucracy.
Indonesia's massive security machine also slashes into profits. Pakpahan told the court that a company must pay out commissions (or protection money) to military personnel, including police, at all levels (from Central Military Command, to District Military command, and village police).
Little wonder that when SBSI invited employers to join their campaign to raise wages by cutting back on commissions, the security forces were up in arms. Legal Aid reported an increase in torture and detainment, the Ministry of Labour reversed its decree allowing workers to join any union other than the government appointed union and was declared illegal.
It is well known that Suharto's policy has been to squeeze wages to attract investment (much to the chagrin of his South East Asian neighbours, including Australians, who complain their national industries are moving off-shore). But it was left to Pakpahan and SBSI to explain the mystery of how so many Indonesians can afford to buy the expensive imported goods on display in the tens of kilometres of "Westfield Towers" that have mushroomed in Jakarta and other urban centres in recent years.
The extent of corruption Pakpahan exposes in his defence papers is startling.
Much of it he learnt first hand: "Since I have been held by police, I have been asked to pay money... Their wages are very low. A number of police that I questioned explained: "You have to pay to get the job." "Who do you pay?" "Our superiors" .
"It's clear that our functionaries from the second level up... are millionaires."
These quotes from the defence go a long way to explaining why, when hearing Mochtar's appeal this year, the judge was inspired to extend Mochtar's sentence from three to four years.
But not all has been in vain. SBSI has been campaigning to index the minimum wage to the cost of living. The formula is a simple one. The World Health Organisation sets out the minimum housing requirements at 10.6 square metres. In Jakarta it costs at least Rupiah 40,000 a month to rent this much space. Minimum physical needs, including transport, come to Rupiah 120,000 per month. Social and recreational needs are the third ingredient. SBSI takes the ILO convention of 11 per cent of the minimum requirements (listed above), then rounds the figure out to Rupiah 13,500.
These three components total Rupiah 173,500 per month. Divided by 26 working days this comes to around Rupiah 7000 per day. (Rupiah 1,600 equals one Australian dollar)
SBSI asks that the payment come in three instalments with the full rise not effective until December, 1995.
The first instalment, bringing the minimum to Rupiah 5000, was set to coincide with the New Order Government's self-proclaimed new era of industrialisation, national resurgence and the rule of law, this April.
This April Suharto has set the new minimum wage to rise to Rupiah 5000.
"What is clear," Pakpahan says, "is that since the April 1994 protest, workers have began to enjoy their rights and wages have gone up."
Zoe Reynolds is a correspondent with the Maritime Workers Union journal