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ACTU squirming on Indonesian links
By Max Lane
On December 3, 1994 SBS TV's Dateline broadcast a program on the Indonesian workers movement and on the ACTU's collaboration with the Suharto dictatorship's puppet organisation, the All- Indonesia Workers Union SPSI (Serikat Pekerja Seluruh Indonesia). In this program ACTU President Martin Ferguson and ACTU International Officer, Alan Matheson attacked the Indonesian Workers for Prosperity Union (SBSI - Serikat Buruh Sejahtera Indonesia) and other independent unions as made up of mostly students and lawyers more interested in democratic rights than "trade union work".
At about the same time Dita Sari, General Secretary of the Centre for Indonesian Working Class Struggle (PPBI - Pusat Perjuangan Buruh Indonesia) attended the Indian Ocean Trade Union Conference in Perth where she criticised ACTU policy on this issue and also called on ACTU-affiliated trade unions to take a stronger stance on supporting independence for East Timor. The SBSI and PPBI are the two most effective independent workers' organisations in Indonesian at the moment. Dita Sari also spoke, along with John Pilger and East Timorese community leader, Gina Soares, to a public meeting of over 500 people in the Trades Hall in Sydney on December 2 where she reiterated the same concerns.
The evidence offered is statements that the ACTU was arranging a visit by a delegation from the SBSI to Australia just before the SBSI leaders were arrested for organising major strikes. It is not stated whether the ACTU would be trying to convince the SBSI leaders to concentrate more on trade union work and less on the struggle for democratic rights.
Ferguson also states that the ACTU supported the decision of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) to provide financial assistance for the legal defence of the gaoled SBSI leaders and to provide training to SBSI members. Ferguson also stated that the ACTU helped fund a visit to Australia by Adnan Buyung Nasution, director of the Legal Aid Institute in Jakarta (LBH). These gestures represent a retreat by Ferguson from his scurrilous attacks on the SBSI made in the "Dateline" program.
For example, the memorandum talks about "the move by industrial sectors to establish their own independent and representative industry based unions." The "reality" is that the Suharto dictatorship, through its Ministry of Labour, ordered the SPSI central leadership to change the SPSI constitution to create "sectoral unions" within the SPSI structure. There is little doubt that the reason for this move was to make it easier for the ACTU to sell the idea of collaborating with yellow puppet unions to trade union members here.
Moreover, Australian government schemes for providing health and safety training in Indonesia, schemes the ACTU has endorsed through its participation in the National Labour Consultative Committee, aren't negotiated with "sectoral unions'', but via the Indonesian labor ministry and its minister, multimillionaire retailer Abdul Latief.
At the end of 1994, the Committee Against ACTU-SPSI Cooperation relaunched a campaign calling for the cancellation of "all plans to cooperate with and provide or channel financial assistance to the SPSI". A similar call has been made by the PPBI.
These calls were prompted by the ACTU's support and involvement in an Australian Government program with the Indonesian Government to provide "workers' education" to shop- floor trade unionists. Only the SPSI is officially recognised by the Suharto dictatorship and is able to have shop floor representatives - usually appointed by management. This program is partially administered through the Indonesian Labour Foundation (Yayasan Tenaga Kerja Indonesia) which involves the Indonesian regime and the SPSI.
Unfortunately there is no campaign in Australia. If what Ferguson says is true, then perhaps there may be some Gareth Evans style "quiet diplomatic representations" being made by the ACTU -- the type that is totally ineffective. The first step in any genuine ACTU campaign in support of free trade unionism would be the ending of support for and a boycott of the Australian government's collaboration with the Suharto dictatorship's Ministry of Labour and its puppet union, the SPSI, whether central leadership or so-called "sectoral" affiliates. "That is the acid test of policy integrity on Indonesian labour issues."
The second step would be for the ACTU to throw its weight behind the movement in Australia to support the general struggle for democratic change in Indonesia. This would involve helping build a strong, public campaign against so-called defence cooperation with the Suharto dictatorship. Given Ferguson's statement in his memorandum that the ACTU also supports the inalienable right to self-determination of the East Timorese, he might like to lead the ACTU in the direction of "doing something effective" to help the East Timorese.
A public campaign, working together with all like-minded groups, to demand an end to all Australian defence cooperation with Jakarta, withdrawal of recognition of Indonesia's annexation of East Timor and an end of Australian-based company involvement in the Timor Gap would be a good start. The ACTU is even in a good position to win support among workers for a black ban on all Australian-based operations connected with the oil explorations in the Timor Gap.
However, it seems more likely that Ferguson and the ACTU see their main "trade union work" to be defending the ALP government and its foreign policy of propping up dictatorships. Until the ACTU actually opposes Australian government links with Jakarta's machine for controlling workers this is the only conclusion that can be drawn.