International Labor Day, also known as May Day, which is celebrated every year on May 1, is here again. This year in Indonesia the commemoration events have been postponed until mid-May because May first coincides with the last day of Ramadan fasting month. There will therefore be a series of national celebrations on the 12th and 14th.
The essence of the May Day commemorations is to honour workers and their work, to establish a standard 8-hour workday throughout the world, and to reminder us that the working class still experiences poor working conditions due to their unequal bargaining position with employers.
For almost two decades, the world of work in Indonesia has been characterised by the flexibilisation of employment relationships in the form of contract work and outsourcing, as well as the automation and digitalisation of work processes.
The flexibilisation of employment relationships and digitalisation are at the heart of the future of work, which is dominated by internet technology. This is also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industrial Revolution 4.0), as automation and digitalisation, creates massive changes in jobs, the workforce and the workplace. The consequences of these changes also demand policy changes at the national government level, and among employers and trade unions so that each of the main stakeholders in industrial relations can adapt.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is changing various types of work and eliminating some others, while also creating new ones. The World Economic Forum (2020) reports that the world of work is now characterised by several things including automation presenting a scenario of “double disruption” for workers due to skill gaps and increasing inequality. This situation must be addressed through various investment efforts to improve the skills of the workforce.
For workers, digitalisation and flexibilisation have reduced the dominance of permanent employment norms, with stable benefits, to non-permanent employment in the form of contracts. This change has led to the emergence of job insecurity, income insecurity and social insecurity. Contract employment causes job uncertainty due to their often-limited structure that can be terminated at any time. This then leads to income uncertainty and social security. These precarious working conditions occur in various sectors: manufacturing, transportation services, tourism, media, and others.
Digitalisation and flexibilisation have also given rise to pseudo-partnerships and a gig economy, a system dominated by temporary work positions with short-term contracts. Pseudo-partnerships are where there is no equality in bargaining power such as between application providers and online motorcycle taxi drivers. The gig economy is now the identity of young people who work as freelancers.
For workers, especially in the service sector, digitisation and flexibilisation have led to unlimited working hours and minimal social protection. Online motorcycle taxi drivers and freelancers often work 12-16 hours a day, which means a return to the working hours of the 19th century when the May Day movement first began. It is a great irony that while technology is developing so rapidly, some working conditions are returning to a time when technology as we know it was still far in the future.
As is the case throughout the world, the two modes of work relationships and processes described above are unavoidable conditions that must be adapted to and facilitated through government policies and regulations.
So far, the government has issued labor policies through Law No. 11 of 2020 on Job Creation to, among other things, facilitate flexible working relationships and the mechanisms to protect them. However, workers feel that the existing regulations do not provide any government support for them. This is not only because of the labor policies themselves, but also because the process of drafting the law did not involve trade unions as important institutions in Indonesia’s industrial relations system.
The direction of labor policy is once again oriented towards providing facilities to capital investment – in line with the main objective of the Job Creation Law as stated by then President Joko Widodo at the World Economic Forum on Indonesia in November 2020: “The passing of the Job Creation Omnibus Law is a big step for us to simplify business licensing and provide legal certainty, as well as provide incentives to attract investment, especially for labor-intensive industries and the digital economy” (viva.co.id 2020).
Policies to address the increased vulnerability of workers due to digital work processes have not been widely developed. More effective protection for workers also needs to be promoted. In the context of Labor Day, trade unions need to urge the government and employers to be more oriented toward worker protection and equality and to invest in improving their skills so that changes in the world of work can also prioritise decent and quality work.