Emancipation or Stagnation: Reading the Struggle of Labor Unions in the Vortex of Labor Law Revision
Statistics Ministry of Manpower (Kemnaker) released in 2024 show that the number of labor unions in Indonesia consists of 21 confederations of SP/SB, 198 federations of SP/SB, and 12,346 SP/SB at the company level. The total number of workers who joined SP/SB in Indonesia is recorded as 4,208,338 people. The largest membership was achieved by several organizations, namely Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Seluruh Indonesia (KSPSI) Andi Gani Nena Wea (AGN), Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Indonesia (KSPSI) Jumhur Hidayat, Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Indonesia (KSPI), and Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Indonesia (KSPSI) Yorrys Raweyai (YRS). KSPSI AGN has 655,819 members as of 2022, while KSPSI Jumhur Hidayat, KSPI, and KSPSI YRS each have more than 500,000 members.1
Our labor union movement today is very diverse. There are unions under large confederations with a strong mass base, independent unions that choose their own path, and even unions formed by management. These various attributes and visions have given rise to many ways of interpreting the essence of workers' struggle.
Unfortunately, for some workers today, joining a union no longer seems appealing. We are faced with stagnation in organizational methods, outdated educational curricula, and poor transparency in dues management. This challenge is exacerbated by the blurring of boundaries between labor union movements and circles of power/capital. Some union elites are suspected to be caught up in oligarchy without receiving a mandate from their mass base.
We realize that unions with large membership bases as mentioned above, ultimately end up being managed by the Prabowo regime by granting positions such as General Chairman of Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Seluruh Indonesia (KSPSI) Jumhur Hidayat being inaugurated by President Prabowo Subianto as Minister of Environment, followed by KSPI President and also President of the Labor Party, Said Iqbal, as a special presidential advisor for manpower, and Andi Gani as a special advisor to the National Police Chief for Manpower. The direction of workers' union struggle ultimately becomes a platform for union elites to gain position and closeness with the state; this strategy becomes an opportunity for the state to cut off the interests of the working class. However, behind the granting of positions to a few union elites through state co-optation, how is the improvement of workers' fate today and after the Constitutional Court (MK) Decision No. 168/PUU-XXI/2023 provides a "fresh breeze" for improving workers' welfare? Or is it the opposite, where union elites get trapped in elite unity politics and laws are formed only to harvest capital accumulation?
The significant political influence of the New Order on the taming of trade unions is still felt to this day. Although the era of freedom of association has been surpassed, its chronicle and practice are still found among trade unions. Among the typologies of union struggles that often get trapped in economicistic interests regarding labor rights, they remain passive in responding to greater structural inequalities. Furthermore, trade unions are often trapped in state-formed legal mechanisms, such as the strategy of fighting the Omnibus Law through a Judicial Review (JR) lawsuit filed with the Constitutional Court (MK).2
Among the many unions today, discussions regarding "class politics" are increasingly fading and rarely promoted. Many trade unions today cannot conduct education, often do not even hold educational sessions, and there is no educational curriculum. Strategies for unions to fight capital are non-existent; they are merely trapped within a legal framework that inevitably weakens their own struggle. Existing education is merely jargonistic, with no transfer of knowledge. Educational needs within unions are very important, while the elites themselves are never educated. Nowadays, the benchmark for becoming a central union executive is the ability to deliver long speeches.
Hegemony Behind the Draft Law on Labor Protection
Currently, the discourse on improving normative labor rights is being processed by the state based on the Decision of the Constitutional Court (MK) No. 168/PUU-XXI/2023 dated October 31, 2024, which partially granted a request for material review against Law Number 6 of 2023 on Job Creation regarding the labor cluster. The MK ordered the law-making body to separate the regulation of the labor cluster from the Job Creation Law and to enact a new labor law within a maximum period of 2 years.
In response to MK Decision 168/PUU-XXI/2023, 16 confederations and 147 federations of worker unions declared the Great Coalition for Indonesian Labor Struggle (KBPBI), including KSPSI AGN, KSPSI Jumhur Hidayat, KSPSI Yorrys, KSBSI, Konfederasi KASBI, Asosiasi Serikat Pekerja Indonesia (ASPEK Indonesia), SBSI 92, as well as several other labor confederations, to oversee the discussion of the draft law (RUU) on Labor Protection.3
Meanwhile, other confederation and federation alliances emerged from the main axis of the Labor Party, named the Coalition of Worker Unions Together with the Labor Party (KSP-PB). KSP-PB includes 72 organizations consisting of the Labor Party, worker/unions confederations, including KSPI, KSBSI, KPBI, dozens of federations and worker union organizations from various sectors, including campus workers, medical workers, media and creative industry workers, ship crew, migrant workers, as well as receiving support from grassroots coalitions, such as Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI), the domestic worker network, women's organizations, fisherfolk organizations, and online transport workers or ojol drivers.4
Currently, no final draft has been officially published by the DPR regarding the latest Draft Law on Labor Protection, but they have conducted a discussion with opinions (RDP), and the DPR RI Legal Bureau (Baleg) has carried out harmonization together with union representatives.5 Unfortunately, substantively, the drafted and revised text still perpetuates the practice of flexible labor relations that create uncertainty for workers' employment and other welfare guarantees. The following is the author's analysis, among others:
| Draft Text | Content and Points | Critical Notes |
| Outsourcing (Alih Daya) | There is a limitation on the work system not directly related to the company's production system, covering businesses: Cleaning services, food providers (catering), security personnel or security units, and supporting service businesses in the mining and oil and gas sectors. |
2. Legalizing this system benefits companies where they can efficiently reduce company expenses without having to think about paying severance pay and other rights for workers whose contract term has expired, thus accelerating the accumulation of company wealth.
3. This draft law separates the outsourcing employment system in state-owned enterprise (BUMN) sectors from similar vulnerabilities in the private sector, such as findings by the author in the oil and gas sector of PT Pertamina.6
2. Absence of normative rights standards established by the state such as fair wages
3. Although social security assistance exists through government contributions, the employer/employer's liability clause is omitted
4. Absence of a supervision system for employers if violations occur
5. Disputes referred to the court dispute mechanism if disputes arise in district courts (PN) will only make informal sector workers vulnerable and lose state responsibility.
2. This regulation does not set standard wages for workers because their pay is based on task completion, application algorithm systems, and performance incentives or bonuses.
2. Terminating workers unilaterally first to obscure their appointment as permanent employees (PKWTT)
3. The practice of continuously extending short-term contract status still occurs frequently despite special notes from Satwasker and jurisprudence through court decisions by the Industrial Relations Court (PHI).8
4. The PKWT practice clearly harms workers because it places them in an uncertain work situation, vulnerable to termination at any time, and difficult to obtain welfare guarantees or decent labor protection. A contract work system that should be temporary is instead used extensively for permanent and continuous workers.
2. Many companies still do not set sectoral wages (UMSK). Constitutional Court Decision 168/PUU-XXI/2023 delegates the Governor, as the state representative at the provincial level, to set sectoral wages (UMSK) based on work characteristics and risks.
3. Despite the Constitutional Court decision mandating UMSK, as stipulated in Ministry of Manpower Regulation No. 16 of 2024 on Setting the 2025 Minimum Wage and Government Regulation No. 49/2025 on the Second Amendment to Government Regulation No. 36/2021 on Wages, the setting of UMSK is not truly implemented.9
2. The special inspection note lacks coercive power to punish employers/companies when violations are found; the results of the special note serve only as a guide for companies to improve their systems if proven to be in violation
3. Weak coordination in enforcing criminal labour law makes it slow to address violations such as sub-minimum wages, rights deductions, and union busting.10
4. Although many companies commit violations such as paying below the UMP, there are no strict sanctions against these companies.
In the analysis sheet above, the regulations formed are nothing but tools of legitimacy that neuter workers' rights. Because the regulations formed are still hijacked systemically through legal mechanisms for capitalist business interests. On the other hand, the space for domestication through regulations makes trade unions lose their political bargaining power, so trade unions no longer see themselves as an oppressed class, but have been tamed through formal legal frameworks.
The formation of law certainly does not entirely exist to protect the interests of the working class; in Marx's view, law often functions to strengthen existing inequalities within social layers and structures. Law as part of a larger mechanism to maintain status quo, because the legal system is never truly neutral or objective but rather biased in favor of the ruling class and capital.
Trade Union Movement: Emancipation or Stagnation?
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' The Communist Manifesto (1848) predicted how the outcome of the working class struggle itself would be "Sometimes workers achieve victory, but only for a short time. The real fruit of their struggle does not lie in the immediate results, but in the ever-widening unity of the working class, ..But every class struggle is a political struggle".
In the context of the trade union struggle that won the lawsuit at the Constitutional Court Case No. 168/PUU-XXI/2023, this certainly is not the final chapter. In reality, what was decided through the oral ruling of the honorable court panel had no impact whatsoever on the condition of the working class that is always oppressed. Two years after the Constitutional Court decision, the labour situation is no better than we imagined, as if the state were present to protect. Conversely, through the regulations formed, it actually displays its evil nature to legalize oppression against the working class.
The draft Law on Labour Protection officially became a law enacted on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. What is confusing is that the final draft text has not been made known to the public, including trade unions. This secrecy triggers suspicion of indications of "hijacking" that degrades workers' rights. Instead of protesting because the text is still "ghostly", Andi Gani Nena Wea, President of KSPSI and part of the Big Coalition for Indonesian Workers' Struggle (KBPBI), expressed "appreciation to the DPR, President Prabowo, and the National Police Chief", despite the entire content of the law not yet being disseminated.
To see the direction of the trade union struggle today, one must look at political economy, including the legal-political perspective, where repeated defeats are inseparable from taming and control through laws formed by the New Order regime. The New Order tamed trade unions through a legal system called Pancasila Industrial Relations (HIP). Therefore, workers must continue to be controlled and not given the opportunity to organize themselves genuinely. In practice, Pancasila Industrial Relations (HIP) is laden with coercion and worker exploitation.11
The Indonesian Great Trade Union Struggle Coalition (KB PBI), in advocating for the revision of the Labor Protection Law, even decided to postpone plans for action by around 50,000 workers in front of the DPR RI building on the grounds that there was potential for irresponsible groups suspected of wanting to hitch a ride and take advantage of the large-scale worker action.12 This certainly raises the question: who is meant as the group taking advantage of worker action? Is it not true that worker protest actions have often been blocked by their own elites because the elites are more "Pakewuh" and submissive to the rulers than making a democratic decision from their members to ensure choosing whether or not to plan protest actions.
This taming can be done very easily without having to use violence, as was practiced by the New Order. Trade unions have been localized in terms of awareness through legal mechanisms while giving space to union elites with promises of positions. As mentioned before, the state provides a venue for resolving cases faced by workers, but in practice, that mechanism often becomes a chasm that only wins for companies.
In the midst of the agenda to improve the Labor Protection Law draft, trade unions that have experienced fragmentation and internal decay, larger union organizations are often silent about the democratic crisis and inequality crisis experienced by the people. Instead of trade unions understanding how experiences of repressive actions, violence, criminalization, even killing people who reject the Omnibus Law., at the same time, trade unions elevate the National Police Chief as an advisory council, a council of honor within the union circle, and inaugurate a joint secretariat with KBPBI. Yet it is clear that this institution often carries out repression even to the point of killing people who reject the Omnibus Law.
Trade unions must return to crafting and finding their way back as the only revolutionary class facing the capitalist class (Marx in The Communist Manifesto). The activity of trade unions continuing to move forward is an important step in forming a class, shared class consciousness.13 Thus, ultimately, the resistance of trade unions should not be interpreted through the narrow space of negotiation between union elites and the state by pushing for the revision of the Labor Protection Law or using other formalistic legal mechanisms. The movement of trade unions must reach a point of true victory, where there is no longer oppression against workers through a legal system that shackles workers themselves.
- https://data.goodstats.id/statistic/saatnya-berserikat-lebih-dari-4-juta-pekerja-bergabung-di-serikat-pekerja-indonesia-MbD2O, Author's note on this statistical figure could increase due to the rapid growth of industrialization including non-affiliated trade unions, or it could decrease recalling that mass layoffs also occurred in 2025-2026 and increased significantly, resulting in a loss of mass member base in factories(https://ekonomi.bisnis.com/read/20260810/12/1994900/data-kemnaker-43805-orang-terdampak-phk-januari-juli-2026) ↩︎
- Want to sue the Omnibus Law in court? Labor unions prepare 15 legal experts ↩︎
- https://rm.id/baca-berita/nasional/316208/koalisi-besar-buruh-resmi-dibentuk-kawal-ruu-ketenagakerjaan ↩︎
- https://www.instagram.com/reel/DacBu-QTlOM/ ↩︎
- The draft bill text and the resulting draft text, which have been discussed through meetings of the DPR RI's Legislative Secretariat (Baleg), can be viewed via https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1ZUExDXJHBsqo-7tmbAP3vgag7QEBuxlX and compared with the draft text proposed by the labor union delegation https://spkep-spsi.org/buruh-bongkar-isi-ruu-ketenagakerjaan-dari-upah-outsourcing-hingga-phk-perlindungan-pekerja-diperkuat/ ↩︎
- https://lbhsemarang.id/ilusi-hukum-perburuhan-praktik-penyimpangan-sistem-kerja-outsourcing-dan-kontrak-kerja-pkwt/ ↩︎
- https://lbhsemarang.id/menuntut-pengangkatan-status-sebagai-pekerja-tetap-pkwtt-buruh-pt-hong-fa-international-di-phk-sepihak/ ↩︎
- https://lbhsemarang.id/buruh-perempuan-menang-di-ma-pt-hong-fa-international-terbukti-licik-melanggar-hak-buruh/ ↩︎
- https://lbhsemarang.id/dinamika-upah-minimum-sektoral-jawa-tengah-antara-belenggu-modal-dan-kemiskinan-struktural/ ↩︎
- https://lbhbali.org/problematik-lemahnya-pengawasan-dan-penegakan-hukum-pelanggaran-hak-pekerja/ ↩︎
- Industrial Relations in the Democratic Era, Sigit Rochadi, et al. ↩︎
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