Strengthening Social Compliance in Indonesia's Palm Oil Sector

Workers in Palm oil sector endure a wide range of decent work challenges that include: limited access to fundamental workers’ rights, in particular the right to organize and bargain collectively, the right to safe and healthy working environment, and the right to be free from discrimination at work; low wages; excessive working hours; violence and harassment, including sexual harassment; and inadequate social and labour protection. The prevalence of informality and unstable and temporary employment relationships that characterize the sector, along with other factors such as remote and isolated work and living environments, low literacy levels and lack of awareness and understanding about rights among workers, increase the risk of exploitation and forced labour. Furthermore, in remote rural areas where most plantations exist, law enforcement, labour inspection and compliance tend to be weak. Laws themselves could at times be inadequate in addressing some of the unique sectoral issues. In a worker-driven social compliance systems workers themselves hold the power to enforce labour standards. These systems are underpinned by binding commitments, particularly between companies at the top of supply chains and the workers and their organizations, and include monitoring and enforcement mechanisms in place which prioritize giving workers a voice in safeguarding their rights. An effective social compliance system includes several elements such as stakeholder engagement; risk and impact assessment; development of robust standards; communication and training on standards across the supply chain; monitoring for compliance; remediating violations; seeking independent verification; and reporting on performance. The Project therefore aims to develop and pilot actionable resources to create global worker-driven social compliance systems, putting workers and their organizations in the driving seat, recognizing that empowered workers are central to effective solutions to ensure the protection of labour rights. The project adopts an integrated rights-based approach focusing on overall advancement of workers’ rights and correspondingly, improvements in working conditions, including elimination of forced labour. Advancing workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining are particularly essential as these are ‘enabling rights’, which cascade into fulfilment of several others such as decent wages and work hours, and safe, healthy, and discrimination- and harassment-free workplaces. By building the capacity of unions and in-turn their members, systems can be put in place for workers to play a key role in monitoring working conditions and to access grievance redressal mechanisms to drive improvements. Respect for the right of workers to associate and to bargain collectively is indispensable to a world free from forced labour. These fundamental labour rights enable workers to exert a collective voice to defend their shared interests and promote decent working conditions, thus creating workplaces that are inimical to forced labour and resilient to its risks. These rights are essential prerequisites for social dialogue, which in turn is critical to building lasting, consensus-based solutions to decent work challenges, including the risks of forced labour.

Project symbol

IDN/23/02/USA

Admin unit

CO-Jakarta

Start date

31/12/2023

End date

31/12/2026

Total allocation

401134

Total expenditure

Status

Active

401134

Development Partners

USA, United States Department of Labor, Bureau for International Labor Affairs, Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor and Human Trafficking

Country/Countries

Indonesia

Outcomes

Outcome 3: Full and productive employment for just transitions