Workers and Intellectuals: NGOs, Trade Unions and the Indonesian Labour Movement

269 Pages·2009·10.884 MB·English

by  Michele Ford

After decades of repression, Indonesia's independent labour
movement re-emerged in the 1990s led by the NGO activists
and students who organised industrial workers and spoke
on their behalf. Worker-led trade unions returned to centre
stage in 1998 when Suharto's authoritarian regime crumbled
and labour NGO activists and their organisations continued to
play an influential — and often controversial — part in the
reconstruction of the labour movement.
Workers and Intellectuals explores how middle-class activists
struggled to define their place in a movement shaped by more
than a century of fierce debate about the role of non-worker
intellectuals. Drawing on extensive interviews, this book
documents the resurgence of labour activism and explains how
activists and workers perceived the position of NGOs in relation
to workers and trade unions. This fine-grained study of labour
organising in a developing country speaks simultaneously
to local and global questions and is important for scholars
of labour history, politics and sociology as well as specialists
working on Indonesia.
Michele Ford chairs the Department of Indonesian Studies at
the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on the Indonesian
labour movement, labour transnationalism and trade union
responses to labour migration.
University of Hawai'i Press
Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822
www.uhpress.hawaii.edu
WORKERS AND INTELLECTUALS
N G O s, Trade Unions and the
Indonesian Labour Movement
M ich ele F ord
Asian Studies Association of Australia
in association with
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I PRESS
HONOLULU
First published by:
NUS Press
National University of Singapore
AS3-01-02, 3 Arts Link
Singapore 117569
Published in North America by:
University of Hawai'i Press
2840 Kolowalu Street
Honolulu, HI 96822
www.uhpress.hawaii.edu
© 2009 NUS Press
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be
invented, without written permission from the Publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ford, Michele.
Workers and intellectuals: NGOs, trade unions and the Indonesian labour
movement/Michele Ford.
p. cm. - (Southeast Asia publications series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8248-3447-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Labor movement - Indonesia — History. 2. Labor unions — Indonesia.
3. Non-governmental organizations — Indonesia. 4. Indonesia - Economic
conditions - 1945- I. Title.
HD8706.5.F67 2009
331.8809598 — dc22
2009025759
Cover: KASBI members demonstrating on May Day 2008. Photo by H. Ismail.
Printed in Singapore
ASIAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA
Southeast Asia Publications Series
WORKERS AND INTELLECTUALS
NGOs, Trade Unions and the
Indonesian Labour Movement
ASIAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA
Southeast Asia Publications Series
Since 1979 the Southeast Asia Publications Series (SEAPS) has brought some of
the best of Australian scholarship on Southeast Asia to an international readership.
It seeks to publish leading-edge research by both young and established scholars
on the countries and peoples of Southeast Asia across all disciplines of the
humanities and social sciences with particular encouragement to interdisciplinary
and comparative research.
SFAPS is now published for the Asian Studies Association of Australia by NUS
Press, a unit of the National University of Singapore, in alliance with the University
of Hawaii Press in North America and the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS)
[non-Indonesia titles] and the KITLV Press [Indonesia titles] in Europe.
Editorial Board
Professor Howard Dick (University of Melbourne) (Editor)
Professor Barbara Andaya (University of Hawaii and University of Hawaii Press)
Professor Colin Brown (Curtin University of Technology)
Associate Professor John Butcher (Griffith University)
Professor Emeritus David Chandler (Monash University)
Associate Professor Helen Creese (University of Queensland)
Professor Robert Cribb (Australian National University)
Dr Jane Drakard (Monash University)
Dr Greg Fealy (Australian National University)
Professor Robert Elson (University of Queensland)
Professor Barbara Hatley (University of Tasmania)
Professor Kevin Hewison (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Professor Virginia Hooker (Australian National University)
Professor Rey Ileto (National University of Singapore)
Gerald Jackson (NIAS - Nordic Institute of Asian Studies)
Dr Paul Kratoska (NUS Press, National University of Singapore)
Professor Tim Lindsey (University of Melbourne)
Professor Andrew MacIntyre (Australian National University)
Emeritus Professor Campbell Macknight (Australian National University)
Professor Anthony Milner (Australian National University)
Dr Harry Poeze (Director, KITLV Press, Leiden)
Professor Anthony Reid (National University of Singapore)
Associate Professor Craig Reynolds (Australian National University)
Professor Merle Ricklefs (National University of Singapore)
Professor Kathryn Robinson (Australian National University)
Dr Mina Roces (University of New South Wales)
Professor Krishna Sen (Curtin University of Technology)
Associate Professor Maila Stivens (University of Melbourne)
Dr Philip Taylor (Australian National University)
Professor Carl Ihayer (University of New South Wales, ADFA)
Professor Adrian Vickers (University of Sydney)
Website: http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/asaa_publications/southeast_asia.html
For Indonesias labour activists
Acknowledgements
I his book represents the culmination of over a decade of research and
thinking about the Indonesian labour movement. It could not have
been written without the generous participation of the NGO activists,
students, workers and unionists who patiently answered my questions,
allowed me to attend meetings and training sessions and invited me
to enter their homes. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to
these workers and activists and to the scholars who have made time to
talk to me about my work then and since. Particular thanks are due
to Fauzi Abdullah and Surya Tjandra for their insights, their never-
failing enthusiasm for my project and their kind words, and to Edward
Aspinall for believing in me and for opening so many doors. Special
thanks too to Keith Foulcher, Lenore Lyons, Robert Cribb, Andrew
Brown, Vedi Hadiz and Braham Dabscheck for their encouragement
and advice, and to David Reeve who has been there since the begin­
ning. I would also like to thank Teri Caraway, who shares my passion
for the Indonesian labour movement, for her friendship, for all our
conversations over the years and for her valuable comments on parts
of the manuscript.
The initial stages of the research on which this book draws were
undertaken as a doctoral project, supervised by Adrian Vickers, Jan
Elliott and Andrew Wells, and completed with financial support from
the School of History and Politics and the Centre for Asia-Pacific Social
Transformation Studies at the University of Wollongong. My historical
research in Indonesia was made possible by the staff at the National
Archives and the National Library and by Koeswari, who generously
made his personal archive available to me. In Australia, I had access
to labour history documents in Jan Elliott’s extensive collection and to
microfilms of the materials in the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project at
the University of Sydney. I am grateful for the support of my super­
visors and fellow travellers in Wollongong and elsewhere during this
time. 'Thanks also to the many people who read and commented on
various chapters, to my sister Lisa Ford, who took time out from her
own PhD to comment on the entire draft, and to the examiners, John
Ingleson and Marcel van der Linden, who provided valuable feedback
on the thesis.
A cknowledgements
X
Further research was conducted while I was teaching at Flinders
University and during my first three years at the University of Sydney.
Endang Rokhani helped me gather information about some of the
missing parts of the puzzle, while Eve Warburton’s cheerful presence
in the ‘office’ during the Australian summer of 2006—07 helped me
focus on updating the manuscript. Two summers later, Wayne Palmers
ever-willing practical assistance and gentle nagging were invaluable as
I settled down to the final round of revisions. Thanks are due also to
Howard Dick for his patient and thorough editing, which forced me
to let go of the thesis in my search for the book.
Last, but certainly not least, I wish to acknowledge the practical
and emotional support I have received from my family in Australia and
Indonesia as I researched and wrote this work. Most of all, I thank
my husband, Muliawarman, who patiently endured my absences, my
enthusiasms and my despairs — and who now knows far more about
Indonesian labour relations than he ever dreamed or desired.
Previously Published Work
Earlier versions of some sections of this book have been published
elsewhere. Drafts of parts of the Introduction and Chapter Four were
published in Ford (2003c; 2006c). Summaries and some of the details
of Indonesian labour history and the developments of post-Suharto
unionism, dealt with in more depth in this book in Chapters One,
Two, Three and Seven, appear in Ford (2000a; 2000b; 2007). I am
grateful to the respective copyright holders for allowing me to repro­
duce this material here. The substance of several chapters has also been
presented at academic conferences in Australia and elsewhere.
Contents
A cknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
Chapter I The Making of the Indonesian Labour Movement 19
Chapter 2 By Workers, For Workers 38
Chapter 3 No Place for Outsiders 62
Chapter 4 Indonesia’s Labour NGOs 82
Chapter 5 Classical Intellectuals 107
Chapter 6 The View from Inside 132
Chapter 7 Organised Labour after Suharto 153
Chapter 8 The Search for a New Role 181
Conclusion 203
Glossary 209
Notes 218
Bibliography 231
Index 249