From Consolidation to Campaigning

The years 1998–2010 were a period of reorganization, recomposition and consolidation for the larger confederations. The unions that evolved from the dissident unionism and radical oppositional politics of the 1990s had a more fluid experience. There is less clear data available regarding the other, less political, confederations, federations and unaffiliated unions. For the larger confederations, especially the KSPSI and KSPI, and also for KSBSI, recomposition and consolidation had more or less been completed by 2010. Their structures, leaderships, international affiliations and mechanisms for collecting dues had settled. Their week to-week work at the factory site, training and public advocacy were all ongoing—constrained primarily by their emphasis on consolidation following the 1998 end of the old system.

By 2010 a new post-consolidation situation arose. How were they to take their development further? The first campaigning issue for the new consolidated unions was the Bill on Social Security Providers (BPJS Bill). This was to establish the provider mechanisms following the passing of Law No. 40/2004 on a National Social Security System (SJSN Law). The SJSN Law required that all Indonesians be covered by social security through five mandatory universal programmes: healthcare benefits, occupational accident benefits, old age risk benefits, pension benefits, and death benefits.

The SJSN Law was passed in 2004, and implementing legislation for insurance programmes was supposed to be passed by 2009. By 2010, the law that would allow execution of the policy by reorganizing the positions and responsibilities of insurance providers had still not been passed. The Yudhoyono government had kept deferring presentation of legislation. Finally, legislation emerged from the parliament itself, but still serious consideration of the bill was deferred.

The bill promised what amounted to an increase in the social wage that could improve the material conditions of many people, including union members. It was an issue with national implications, and could be addressed as such. A coalition of confederations, federations and other unions was formed, along with the NGO TURC, to campaign for the BPJS Bill to be passed. This was the Komite Aksi Jaminan Sosial (KAJS—Action Committee for Social Security). The term Komite Aksi immediately conjured up an image of the mobilizing committees that had mushroomed during the 1990s in opposition to the New Order.