Strengthening Industrial Relations in Indonesia

Title: Strengthening Industrial Relations in Indonesia Sub-title: Building the capacity of garment sector workers and their representatives to effectively organize and represent all workers in Indonesia’s garment sector and participate more actively and inclusively in key national policy advocacy Industrial relations (IR) in Indonesia are at a critical juncture. The country is facing an economic recession and trade unions (TUs), in particular, are facing unprecedented challenges in the wake of the economic, political and social challenges brought by the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent labour law regulatory changes. This project aims, therefore, to tackle some of the most pressing challenges affecting workers and their organizations today, including:1) Declining membership and deficiencies in garment trade union’s internal systems for data management and members’ outreach; 2) Lack of women leadership in trade unions and gender inclusive policies and practices in trade union's organizational management and operations;3) Lack of capacity and effective coordination by unions for policy advocacy; 4) Lack of knowledge by garment workers of their rights in general and in particular concerning the (new) labour law; 5) Lack of skills in organizing and engaging in workplace cooperation, particularly by those unions and workers’ representatives (including unaffiliated trade unions) that have had less access to support and training. The project will address those challenges by focusing on Indonesia’s garment export sector where the ILO has a long-standing presence and programme – the ILO Better Work Indonesia programme. As one of the most “scrutinized” sectors in the country for compliance with labour laws and international labour standards, the garment sector remains an interesting entry point for change and “ripple effect” to other sectors and national level. This project is part of an overall strategy by the ILO and Better Work Indonesia programme to strengthen industrial relations in Indonesia’s garment sector. It aims to achieve this by supporting trade unions in professionalizing and upgrading their operational, technical and policy engagement capacity, at both the federation, branch and workplace level. Special consideration will be taken in influencing constructive engagement practices towards women members and inclusion and in particular in increasing womens´voices and presence in decision-making and policy discussion. This will hopefully improve the overall positioning and bargaining power of garment trade unions at both the national and workplace level and will ultimately lead to improved industrial relations. The direct beneficiaries of this project will be garment women workers in Better Work Indonesia factories and their representatives at the factory, branch and federation levels. The indirect beneficiaries are all garment workers, unionised or not, that may benefit from a better standing and bargaining position by garment trade unions in the country. The project aims also at producing spill over effects to the national capacity of trade unions to advocate and contribute to industrial and labour policy debates. The project will work primarily and, at the organizational capacity level, with the four Garment Federations represented at the ILO BWI programme advisory committee (PAC): the F SP TSK KSPSI, the garment federation associated to the Confederation of All-Indonesian Workers Unions or Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Seluruh Indonesia (KSPSI); the Federasi Serikat Pekerja Tekstil, Sandang dan Kulit Serikat Pekerja Seluruh Indonesia (F SP TSK – SPSI; SPN, the garment level federation of the Indonesian Trade Union Confederation or Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Indonesia (KSPI) and; Garteks, the garment federation associated with the Confederation of All Indonesian Trade Union (KSBSI). See Appendix A for a profile of the trade unions. Development objective: Strengthened trade unions in the garment sector that can effectively

Project symbol

IDN/22/01/CAN

Admin unit

CO-Jakarta

Start date

10/03/2022

End date

24/03/2025

Total allocation

568851

Total expenditure

Status

Active

568851

Development Partners

Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada

Country/Countries

Indonesia

Outcomes

Outcome 2: Strong, representative and influential tripartite constituents and effective social dialogue