WORKERS TO SEEK POLITICAL CONTRACT WITH PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Jakarta, April 20 (ANTARA) - Various labor organizations in Indonesia will ask candidates for the presidential election in July to sign a political contract with them to ensure that the next government will pay proper attention to workers' interests.

"We will not repeat the mistake in 2004 when no contract was made with the presidential candidates so that workers' interests remained ignored," the president of the Confederation of Indonesian Welfare Workers Unions (KSBSI), Rekson Sulaban, said here on Monday.

The chairman of the Federation of Independent Workers' Associations (Gaspermindo), Moh Jumhr Hidayat, also said the future government must be friendly toward labor movements and accommodate the various ideas and interests of the country's workers.

He said as an example the future government had to limit the application of the outsourcing system in manpower recruitment.

To avoid lay-offs, he said, the future government also had to increase its fiscal stimulus, intensify its national self-sufficient community empowerement program (PNPM) and placement of formal migrant workers.

"PNPM sectors must be made more massive so that more people can get work immediately," he said.

In response to the recent implementation of the legislative elections, the workers' organizations said the future government had to be able to overcome increasing unemployment as a result of the current global economic crisis.

They appealed to the government to immediately create jobs and develop small and medium businesses to reduce unemployment.

Other workers' organizations involved in the statemnet were The Federation of the Indonesian Islamic Workers' Unions (Gasbiindo), the Indonesian Struggle Aspirations Workers Union (SP API), the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (SBMI) and the Federation of Indonesian National Workers Unions (FSPNI).

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