These are original articles that have not been submitted to external media.

Summary of hearing from trade unions in Indonesia: Protection of dismissed workers

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This is a summary of meeting with trade unions at ILO Jakarta Office on March 24.

Dismissal Situation

Indonesia is experiencing significant challenges with unemployment and worker protection, as revealed in a meeting with trade union representatives at the ILO Jakarta office. Daily reports of dismissals across the country have become common place, with the Sritex case in Central Java standing as a prominent example where over 10,000 workers were dismissed following the company’s bankruptcy. These workers are now demonstrating daily, demanding their entitlements including wage payments, THR, and severance pay. According to trade union representatives, such cases represent only a fraction of the total dismissals occurring throughout Indonesia.

Data Collection Issues

The government’s data collection remains incomplete, with the National Statistics Office (BPS) lacking disaggregated data on the specific reasons for unemployment—whether from dismissal, resignation, or fixed-term contract expiration. This data gap is particularly problematic for administering the country’s unemployment insurance scheme (JKP), which provides 60% of previous wages for up to six months but requires that recipients be dismissed rather than having resigned. Currently, about 30,000-40,000 unemployed workers claim these benefits monthly, but without comprehensive dismissal data, it’s impossible to assess whether this represents adequate coverage. Trade unions suggest many dismissals go unreported in official statistics.

Awareness and Benefit Usage

A significant concern is that many workers, including those from Sritex, lack awareness of their rights to unemployment benefits and eligibility criteria. Instead of claiming these benefits, workers commonly withdraw from their old age savings accounts (JHT), compromising their financial security in retirement. Because workers don’t understand their entitlements to unemployment benefits, they immediately resort to withdrawing their old age savings, which are designed for retirement rather than temporary unemployment support.

Compliance with Labour Laws

Compliance issues with labour laws are also evident, with companies sometimes dismissing employees with minimal notice despite the legal requirement for 30 days’ advance notice or equivalent wage payment. The practice often differs case by case, creating gaps between legal provisions and actual compliance that require improved dialogue between workers and employers.

Age Limitations and Protection Gaps

The social protection system further suffers from inconsistent age limitations—unemployment benefits cover only those below 54, JHT covers those below 56, and the pension age is 59—leaving older workers, particularly the self-employed who may work beyond 70 years of age, inadequately protected. These inconsistencies fail to effectively protect older persons who continue working, especially in self-employment.

These issues collectively signal an urgent need for improved policy dialogue to strengthen Indonesia’s social protection framework in the coming year.

Note: This article was generated using artificial intelligence technology with human assistance, based on a transcript of my original presentation.

Social protection monitor: Indonesia, February 2024

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Summaries below were produced to capture the overall dynamics of Indonesia’s social protection issues. For professional use, please refer to the original articles in Indonesian. The summaries may contain errors and misinterpretations. Read more

Civil G8 Dialogue

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On April 23rd and 24th, “Civil G8 Dialogue” took place in Kyoto, to put forward civil society perspectives on the issues on the official agenda of the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit. I worked part time and joined it as well. That was my first international conference ever.

Grasmere

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Having been running straight toward one goal for the past years, I am now standing at the starting point. Since I got involved in an NGO based in Japan, my concern about poverty reduction and international development has started to grow up. Particularly, studying at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) was one of the best choices I had ever made. Soon after receiving my degree in Law and leaving the Kagawa University, I was provided great opportunities to study a number of fresh issues and cutting-edge approaches on an area of poverty reduction, with my passionate colleague from all over the world. Now, I am at the starting point of my career as a poverty reduction specialist.

I am now on holiday at a small village in the Northern England, and leaving for Cambodia on September 25th. My first work as a professional will be with the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) at the International Labour Organisation (ILO). I will have been working in Phnom Penh until the middle of March 2010. Without doubt, this is a challenging mission for me; therefore, I will gain the largest input if I can complete it at the end.
As William Wordsworth used to love a little village, Grasmere, I enjoy peaceful atmosphere in this neighbour village, Windermere. Although the wind makes feel a little cold, it will passionate me to become a professional more and more.

Restart from Brighton

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“Living more cheaply”

Since arriving at Brighton, the UK, I have slightly got used to a different life. As being told before, I have found the higher prices of everything encouraging me not to buy many things at first. But you can live withought buying such expensive stuffs, of course. Obviously, some stores sell staple items cheaper and others offer papers or books with more reasonable prices, which is great. For example, I buy a newspaper, THE TIMES, for 25p out of 70p everyday and have had a whole bread for 10p and eggs for free. It is absolutely important to know where to buy what you want.

By the way, I have found a great news in the paper today, which says ‘Cheaper groceries despite soaring costs’. Everything is going well.

Education

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“What’s education”

Today was the last day for me to teach kids at an institute where I was working for 3 months. My students were almost 30; 10 to 14 years old, and none of them were kinds of stupid. All of them have both good abilities and weak points. I have never said, “Don’t do that!” or “Do that as I said!” although some co-workers told their kids like that. But there is a question. ‘How do you know whether you are right or your kids are right?’

When I taught one of my pupils how blood ran inside us, he told me, “It is similar to our society y. There are many elders being thrown away after retiring while the younger are working hard.” He thought fresh bloods as younger people and old bloods thorown out of bodies as older people.

My boss thoughts he was not good at studying but I didn’t. In fact, it was not easy to teach and make him concentrate. Now we have to think about the reason why it was difficult. The thing is he had a lot of questions and interests everytime and wanted to ask those. He had his own ideas. I love answering those.

Anyway, this work has given me some ideas on education. Thanks and good luck to my kids.

2 years ago

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Last weekend, I went to see my old friends in Tokyo after Yokohama for a meeting called ‘Student Summit’. One of my friends who I really missed was not there at that time, but I enjoyed having plenty of kimchi stew and talking to them about our future, goals and love stories during the whole night.

Japanese Youth Meets in Shikoku for Development

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We had a big event in Ehime. Almost 40 students who were interested in environment, international issues or students organisation itself gathered and stayed for the past three days in Rainbow Highland there. We shared our experiences and information of volunteer organisations members joined. This extremely fantastic event motivated all of us.

Happy new year

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Happy new year!

Now I am in my home town with my family and have not been here for a year. During the last year, there were a lot of things happened around me. Those do not just mean I went to many foreign countries and saw hundreds of new friends, but also those changed my way to think about my future or life. Everybody I met gave me different effects. I would like to keep in touch with them. I hope all of them have happy new year.

Ippei