Despite Being Rejected By Workers And Students, President Jokowi Has Still Signed A Work Creation Law For 1,187 Pages

President Jokowi (Screenshot of the Presidential Secretariat Youtube)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) officially signed the Omnibus Law on the Job Creation Law which was passed by the DPR on October 5. The signing of this law was held on Monday, November 2 and promulgated in Law Number 11 of 2020.

The government has also officially uploaded a copy of this law via the jdih.setneg.go.id site. The number of pages in the Job Creation Law is 1,187 pages.

On this site, hundreds of people have been recorded who have downloaded the legislation which has recently caused polemics to lead to demonstrations in a number of areas including DKI Jakarta.

It is known that a number of demonstrations by workers and students against the ratification of the Job Creation Law have indeed occurred since this law was passed at the DPR Plenary Session some time ago. In fact, the demonstration which took place on Thursday, October 8 was also chaotic because of the rioters who had joined the student group who at that time took to the streets to voice their aspirations.

Labor and student groups rejected it for a number of reasons. Apart from being deemed to be detrimental to workers by regulating the labor cluster in the law, the Job Creation Law has been under the spotlight because it is considered to have been carried out in a hurry and closed in discussion even though this has been denied compactly by the government and the legislature.

Most recently, workers from the KSPI and KSPSI groups have just visited the Constitutional Court (MK). They intend to file a suit for judicial review of the legislation. However, because this law had not been promulgated by the government on Monday afternoon, November 2, their visit to the Constitutional Court was limited to delivering a statement of attitude.

In this statement of stance, the President of KSPI Said Iqbal asked the Constitutional Court judges to be serious in deciding the case of the Job Creation Law without looking at any interests without the interests of the state.

In addition, Iqbal asked the Constitutional Court Judge not only to consider material evidence or the words contained in the article points of the Job Creation Law but also to consider the effect in the article of the law which is considered detrimental to the constitutional rights of workers.

"These losses, for example, are about contract arrangements or PKWT and PKWTT. By looking at the article, it seems that there is no problem that has been caught by the public," said Iqbal when delivering a statement to the Constitutional Court, this afternoon.

"However, we ask the Constitutional Court judges to abolish the contract time limit and contract period in the Ciptaker Law. This is because the constitutional implication of a citizen becomes a loss because he does not have the opportunity to be appointed as a permanent employee because there is no time limit on the contract," he continued.

Likewise with the UMSK which was removed. The Job Creation Act mandates that there is still a minimum wage, namely UMP or there is a conditional UMK. However, Iqbal said that workers still do not receive the same level of wages for one province.

"Is it fair if the flip-flop company has the same minimum wage as the Toyota or Freeport factory? This is what we are asking to decide fairly.

Other problematic articles that were mentioned in the statement of attitude for the Constitutional Court were issues of outsourcing, reduction of severance pay, wages for working hours, and regarding foreign workers.