Advancing Workers' Rights in Indonesia's Palm Oil Sector

Drawing from the ILO’s extensive experience in technical cooperation initiatives on the promotion of decent work in the rural economy, and in particular the agro-food sector, and taking into consideration the multifaceted nature of challenges faced by workers at the base of agricultural supply chains, the proposed project aims at promoting sustainable rural livelihoods and decent work through improved access to labour rights in Indonesia’s palm oil supply chain. The project’s objective is to ensure that, after two years, Indonesian unions in the palm oil supply chain effectively advocate for their members’ access to fundamental workers’ rights, in particular freedom of association and collective bargaining. This initiative, which builds on the ongoing ILO work in Indonesia’s palm oil sector, will help to improve workers’ access to labour rights – and, correspondingly, to better-quality jobs – contribute to improved compliance, through strengthened capacity of enterprises to implement core labour standards and national labour laws, and to expanded rule of law at both national and local levels. It will do so by inter alia promoting social dialogue and strengthening the capacity of unions to effectively engage in it with employers and government and advocate for their members; supporting the strengthening and enforcement of national legislation on labour issues and collecting and disseminating knowledge on employment and labour issues in the palm oil supply chain. The project will focus on A. Generating in-depth knowledge about opportunities and challenges for the promotion of freedom of association and collective bargaining and effective social dialogue in the sector. B. Strengthening national-level coordination and engagement among trade unions in the palm oil supply chain, as well as their capacity to advocate for their members, through the effective functioning of the national palm oil union network. The overall focus is on institutional capacity building of labour movement actors at the national level and will include needs-based training and education programmes for trainers from federations/confederations. C. Enhancing capacity at enterprise/local level of labour unions and workers in the sectors/sub-sectors of the palm oil supply chain, in particular plantation workers, to ensure that they can advocate for and access their rights. D. Facilitating sound industrial relations through strengthened capacity of the tripartite constituents to participate meaningfully in social dialogue. Thus, in addition to workers, the project will target employers’ and government institutions. Training programmes and courses as well as a series of bipartite and tripartite dialogue forums will be organized at national and provincial levels.

Project symbol

IDN/18/02/USA

Admin unit

CO-Jakarta

Start date

07/09/2019

End date

27/08/2021

Total allocation

532718

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

532718

Development Partners

US Government

Country/Countries

Indonesia

Outcomes

Outcome 3: Full and productive employment for just transitions