SBSI calls on youth groups not to intervene in labor matters

The Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI) calls on youth groups not to intervene in labors matters, moreover intimidate and prevent labors from forming or joining trade unions as it contradicts with the prevailing regulations.

SBSI spokesman Andy William Sinaga said in a statement that the trade union regretted the actions of leaders of some youth groups affiliated to the New Order government that had discredited SBSI.

The trade union especially slammed the leaders of once-feared Pemuda Pancasila and the Indonesian National Youth Committee (KNPI) in East Kalimantan that provoked locals to move against striking labors at PT Vico Indonesia in Muara Badak, East Kalimantan, on Nov. 1.

According to Andy, the chairman of KNPI's East Kalimantan branch, Drs. H. Zainal Arifin, and the chairman of Pemuda Pancasila's East Kalimantan branch, Timur Edwin, had both warned SBSI executives and members to leave East Kalimantan.

Another case occurred in Tabalong, South Kalimantan, and in Sumbawa island in West Nusa Tenggara, in which youth groups under KNPI intimidated labors from forming and joining trade unions.

Andy noted that such irresponsible actions of youth group leaders were against the 1945 Constitution's Article 28 that guarantees the freedom of association and freedom of expression. Besides, such actions were also in violation of Law No. 21/2000 on Labors and also ILO Convention No. 87 that both guarantee labors' freedom to unionize, and ILO Convention No. 98 that guarantees labors' freedom to organize and negotiate.

Andy also denied baseless accusations that SBSI was a communist organization. He noted that SBSI was founded based on the state ideology Pancasila. And President Abdurrahman Wahid is one of its founders. Andy went on that SBSI was an affiliate of the Geneva-based International Labor Organization (ILO) and of the Brussels-based World Confederation of Labor. (*)