Indonesian protesters push repeal of Job Creation Law

Members of Indonesian trade unions protest against the government’s proposed labor reforms in a controversial ‘jobs creation’ bill in Tangerang, on the outskirts of Jakarta on Monday. (Reuters)
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Updated 07 October 2020
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Indonesian protesters push repeal of Job Creation Law

  • Lawmakers say move will woo investors; experts argue it will trigger job insecurity, curtail workers’ rights

JAKARTA: Angry Indonesian activists took to the streets on Tuesday, a day after parliament rushed to pass into law the controversial Omnibus bill on job creation, which government officials say will lure more investments to the country, but protestors argue will promote a “contemporary form of slavery.”

“Both the House of Representatives and the government have lost their conscience and have not taken into account the fate of the people by passing the bill,” Nining Elitos, chairwoman of Indonesian Trade Union Congress Alliance (KASBI) Confederation, told Arab News.

Other activists slammed the Job Creation Law (JCL), reasoning that it would trigger job insecurity and deny workers their rights as guaranteed under the 2003 Manpower Law. 

For months, trade unions have raised concerns that the new regulation will remove an obligation for employers to pay a severance package to employees who had been laid off and would enable companies to extend working contracts indefinitely, compared to a maximum of two annual extensions as per the previous law.

“KASBI members and other unions under the Gebrak coalition will continue to protest against the law,” Elitos said. 

Meanwhile, Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Chairwoman Asfinawati told Arab News that the NGO and other civil society organizations were driving a motion of no confidence against parliament to reject the new legislation.

“We are taking a precedent set following the passing of Law No. 25 in 1997 on manpower. The law has never been effectively implemented due to a wide-scale public repudiation,” Asfinawati said on Tuesday.

After years of rejection by workers and employers, the 1997 law was eventually revoked in 2002 and replaced with the 2003 Manpower Law. 

While admitting that the movement may not be successful, Asfinawati said that activists would continue to express their discontent against the JCL, which leaned toward a “contemporary form of slavery.” 

“A judicial review to challenge the law with the Constitutional Court is an eventuality, but rights groups are in no rush to do so,” she added.

Demonstrators from Tangerang, Banten and Bekasi, West Java, were prevented from entering the capital Jakarta by police on Monday.

However, another Gebrak activist, Ilhamsyah, told Arab News on Tuesday that protests had broken out in several areas across the country, including in Indonesia’s busiest port, Tanjung Priok, in North Jakarta, and Batam, Riau Islands — a free-trade zone located an hour away on a boat from Singapore. 

“The rallies will continue until Thursday,” Ilhamsyah added. 

The JCL, which amends parts of 79 existing laws, including the Labor Law, was ratified three days ahead of schedule with Achmad Baidowi, deputy chairman of the House’s legislative body. 

He justified the abrupt change of plan due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) within the House of Representatives.

“We agreed that as the spread of COVID-19 in the parliament is accelerating, we must push forward the closing of current hearing sessions,” Baidowi told reporters in Jakarta.

During Monday’s meeting, Deputy Speaker Azis Syamsuddin said that 18 House lawmakers, staff and employees had contracted the disease, adding to the total of 307,120 cases and 11,253 deaths reported from across the country.

The JCL is one of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s key priorities in his second and final term, with Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto saying on Monday that it would strengthen protection of workers and improve investment opportunities. 

He added that it provides the legal basis for the government to increase its “contribution to the national employment insurance program and take measures to streamline business licensing procedures.”

Economists, however, are not so convinced.

Some expressed hesitation that the JCL is simply the panacea that the government needs to woo investors, particularly amid the pandemic. 

“Tackling the pandemic should be the focus now…but the government was busy pushing for ratification of the Omnibus law. In the meantime, the pandemic has diminished Indonesia’s attractiveness as it reduced public purchasing power and disrupted mobility and production capacity,” Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara, a researcher with the think tank Institute for Development of Economics and Finance, told Arab News on Tuesday.

He added that investors’ confidence in Indonesia is “currently very low” due to the government’s poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The ratification of the law may already backfire and further bring down investors’ confidence as it leads to new uncertainties. It is likely that investors will prolong their wait-and-see stance as hundreds of regulations must be amended in accordance with the new legislation,” he said.

Others argue that the JCL could pose new risks to the country’s tropical forests.

On Tuesday, Arie Rompas, forest campaign team leader at Greenpeace Indonesia, highlighted the weaker penalties in the JCL for forest concession holders, which “cause land and forest fires and other issues surrounding a planned centralization of forest licensing, which is against Indonesia’s regional autonomy rules.”

In a strongly worded statement on Monday, rights watchdog Amnesty International (AI) Indonesia called it a “catastrophic” move.

“The passage of the Omnibus law exposes the authorities’ lack of commitment to human rights,” AI Indonesia Executive Director Usman Hamid said in a statement on Monday, adding that the “catastrophic law” would harm workers’ wallets, job security and their human rights.

He also added that the government failed to involve labor unions and civil society groups in the JCL’s drafting process.

“The law threatens human rights and will have a regressive effect on human rights in Indonesia, namely on the right to work and rights at work. This may amount to a breach of the prohibition of retrogression under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,” he said.


Adani allegations shine spotlight on India’s clean energy conundrum

Updated 4 sec ago
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Adani allegations shine spotlight on India’s clean energy conundrum

  • The problem is that India’s states are unprepared for the rapid rise in renewable generating capacity, lack adequate transmission infrastructure and storage

NEW DELHI: Bribery allegations against Adani Group founder Gautam Adani have highlighted the growing problem India’s renewable energy developers face in finding buyers for the power they generate.
While India’s central government wants to shift away from polluting coal-fired generation toward solar and wind, officials say state government-owned power distribution companies responsible for keeping the lights on have dragged their heels over striking renewable purchase deals. US authorities allege that Indian billionaire Adani conspired to devise a $265 million scheme to bribe Indian state government officials to secure solar power supply deals, after one of his companies was unable to secure buyers for a $6 billion project for several years.
The Adani Group has denied the charges.
The conglomerate is not alone in facing increasingly long delays in signing up buyers for the renewable electricity capacity which is now being developed in coal-dependent India — the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Coal accounted for 75 percent of India’s power generation during the year to the end of March, with renewables such as solar and wind, but not including hydro-electricity, making up about 12 percent.
India is still more than 10 percent short of its much-publicized pledge to add 175 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power by 2022.
That has led the federal government to ramp up bidding for renewable projects to meet an ambitious 2030 target of increasing its non-fossil fuel capacity to 500 gigawatts (GW). In the five years to March 2028 it plans to tender for more than four-times the capacity of renewable energy projects it commissioned in the preceding five.
To push states to help meet India’s overall goal, New Delhi in 2022 introduced so-called renewable purchase obligations (RPOs), which mandate that states increase clean energy adoption so that the national share doubles to 43.3 percent in March 2030.
Honouring these RPOs would require 20 of the 30 provinces monitored to more than double the share of green power in their electricity mix, a February report by government think-tank NITI Aayog showed.
The problem is that India’s states are unprepared for the rapid rise in renewable generating capacity, lack adequate transmission infrastructure and storage and would rather rely on fossil fuel for supply than risk “intermittent” renewables.
The challenges were stark in the case of Adani Green, India’s largest renewable energy company, which took nearly 3-1/2 years to strike supply deals with buyers for the entire 8 gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity it won in a tender widely publicized as the country’s biggest.

DEMAND POOL
Yet setting targets for tenders and issuing contracts is “meaningless” so long as interest from power distribution companies is so low, said R. Srikanth, energy industry adviser and dean at India’s National Institute of Advanced Studies.
And the allegations against Adani are likely to result in a further renewables slowdown, as low-cost finance from foreign investors may become more difficult to secure, Srikanth said.
A change in the way some tenders are run has exacerbated delays in the time it takes to complete renewables projects. The tender won by Adani Green was the first major contract issued by state-run Solar Energy Corp. of India (SECI) without a state-guaranteed Power Purchase Agreement (PPA).
When announced in June 2019, SECI said buyers were guaranteed, but it withdrew the provision from the deal signed a year later.
SECI’s chairman told Reuters last month that a three-fold increase in tendering of renewable projects has left 30 GW of projects for which bidding is complete, but without buyers.
“You can’t expect the states to respond and start signing three times the power supply agreements,” R P Gupta told Reuters in an interview, adding that a “demand pool has to be created” and states had to be “sensitised” to renewables.
Brokerage JM Financial said that it now takes 8 to 10 months to sign power supply deals after a contract is awarded.
By comparison, companies that were awarded contracts between July 2018 and December 2020 needed around three months to strike supply deals, SECI data showed.
“The sudden surge in bids, large pipeline of projects under construction, mismatch in power demand and bid-pipeline ... and constraints in timely execution of projects are leading to delays in signing,” JM Financial said.
Renewable energy projects have also seen cancelations, with about 4 percent-5 percent of all tendered projects annulled, and backlogs in transmission infrastructure development, Gupta said.
One solution, said Rakesh Nath, former chairman of India’s Central Electricity Authority, would be knowing how much power buyers want before projects are bid for.
“Taking buyers into confidence before inviting bids may minimize delays in signing power supply agreements,” he said.


‘Anti-woke’ Americans hail death of DEI as another domino topples

Updated 1 min 47 sec ago
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‘Anti-woke’ Americans hail death of DEI as another domino topples

  • Conservative activists hailed 2023 as a landmark year in America’s never-ending culture wars

WASHINGTON: America’s largest private employer, Walmart, is the latest name to join a list of US businesses and institutions rethinking programs to bolster minority groups as support for progressive policies erodes.
Walmart said it will phase out the terms “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) and “Latinx,” end supplier diversity programs, shutter a racial equity center and pull out of a prominent gay rights index.
The announcement comes in the wake of similar moves by a string of prestige brands — from Ford, John Deere and Lowe’s to Harley-Davidson and Jack Daniel’s — reflecting a backlash against so-called political correctness in American public life.
The rightward shift is credited in part for populist Donald Trump’s White House comeback and for laying the groundwork for a 2023 Supreme Court ruling ending affirmative action in college admissions.
DEI initiatives aim to right historical discrimination but conservatives have long criticized them as unfairly targeting white people, particularly men, as well as being performative “virtue-signaling.”
Anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck, who lobbied Walmart before its announcement, celebrated the “biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America” and noted that the company’s stock had risen 2.1 percent.
“Our movement is a force in the market. Go woke, go broke actually has meaning now,” he posted on X.
Starbuck, 35, told AFP in an interview before Trump’s November 5 victory over Democrat Kamala Harris — who was criticized for previous “woke” policy positions — that ordinary Americans were sick of inclusivity and diversity policies at US companies.
“People are entitled to their views, and we need to have a system that creates equal footing for everybody and doesn’t force any one ideology down everybody’s throats,” he said.
Emboldened by Trump’s campaign pledges to end “wokeness,” conservative groups have been filing numerous lawsuits targeting corporate and federal programs aimed at elevating minorities and women.
Trump himself focused mostly on political correctness that he says is infecting the nation’s classrooms, promising executive orders to cut federal funding schools pushing critical race theory and “transgender insanity.”
The president-elect has surrounded himself with anti-woke allies of all stripes, including his incoming deputy policy chief Stephen Miller, whose America First Legal group has targeted corporate diversity.
The military has been the main target of anti-woke crusaders in the US Congress, who argue that racial justice education and an obsession with climate change have made the troops go soft and driven a recruitment slump.
Republican lawmakers who spent much of the last congressional session locked in a war with Pentagon leaders on political-correctness were rewarded with Trump’s pick to lead the defense department’s workforce of three million — anti-DEI Fox News host Pete Hegseth.
Conservative activists hailed 2023 as a landmark year in America’s never-ending culture wars, when the conservative-majority Supreme Court ended affirmative action in university admissions, reversing a major gain of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.
Conservative groups pounced on the ruling to fight all manner of diversity programs in court.
And in March, the University of Florida ended DEI programs and related jobs as part of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s offensive against “woke ideology” — joining campuses in around a dozen other states.
Workers are divided on the merits of DEI, with a slowly-growing share saying their company pays too much attention to the issue — 19 percent in an October Pew Research Center poll compared with 14 percent in the same survey in February 2023.
But a new poll of 1,300 employees from business think tank The Conference Board, showed a robust 58 percent indicating that their organization devotes the appropriate level of effort on DEI.
“Leaders should focus on what really matters for their workforce amid the noise, as these initiatives are crucial for attracting and retaining current and future talent,” said Allan Schweyer, the group’s principal Researcher for human capital.


Global operation seizes 1,400 tons of drugs, unearths new Pacific trafficking route

Updated 23 min 44 sec ago
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Global operation seizes 1,400 tons of drugs, unearths new Pacific trafficking route

  • More than 1,400 tons of drugs seized, over 400 criminals arrested in global operation in October and November
  • Operation “Orion” involved the US, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands and other nations, as well as multiple international organizations
  • The seizure deprived drug cartels of more than $8.4 billion dollars, according to the Colombian Navy

BOGOTA: Authorities from dozens of countries seized 225 metric tons of cocaine in a six-week mega-operation where they unearthed a new Pacific trafficking route from South America to Australia, the Colombian Navy said Wednesday.
The latest phase of global naval operation “Orion” resulted in the seizure of more than 1,400 tons of drugs, including 225 tons of cocaine and 128 tons of marijuana, navy official Orlando Enrique Grisales told reporters.
More than 400 people were arrested in the operation targeting oceans, coasts, rivers and ports around the globe in October and November.
The massive bust involved the security agencies of the United States, Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands and several other nations, as well as multiple international organizations.
The seizure deprived drug cartels of more than $8.4 billion dollars, according to a Navy statement.
Grisales said officials also seized a semisubmersible wood-and-fiber glass vessel on its way to Australia with five tons of Colombian cocaine.
This was the third such vessel discovered in this area, revealing a “new route” of trafficking with sophisticated boats that can cover the distance of some 10,000 miles without needing to refuel.
A kilogram of cocaine is sold for up to $240,000 in Australia, said Grisales — about six times more than the price in the United States.
“It is a route that is becoming increasingly profitable because prices are much higher in Australia,” a security source told AFP.
“Initially, these boats were used mainly to take the drugs out of the country and move them off the coast of Colombia and then transfer them to ships,” added the source.
“It has been found that these semisubmersibles, sometimes even submersibles, are now increasingly sophisticated, with very fine engineering.”
The operation also uncovered previously-unknown alliances between cartels from Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru with groups from Europe and Oceania.
“It is not just a pyramid structure as the cartels once were. Today they are organized crime networks joined together,” said Grisales.
Colombia is the world’s biggest cocaine producer and exporter, mainly to the United States and Europe.
Last year, the South American country set a new record for cocaine production and cultivation of the coca leaf it is made from.


Under tariff threat, US wholesaler warns: ‘People will pay’

Updated 28 November 2024
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Under tariff threat, US wholesaler warns: ‘People will pay’

  • No matter what happens in January, retailer Melquiades Flores says he has no option but to keep importing produce from Mexico
  • The tomato-growing season in California lasts four months. The rest of the year, he gets the produce from Mexico

LOS ANGELES: While most of Los Angeles sleeps, 58-year-old Melquiades Flores starts his day at 1 a.m., supervising the unloading of produce at M&M Tomatoes and Chile Company, the wholesaler he started in 2019.
But the business that Flores hopes to pass to his children one day is bracing for a disruption.
US President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to impose a 25 percent tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada when he takes office on Jan. 20, plus an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods.
“Produce of Mexico” is stamped on almost all the boxes of tomatoes and chilies that arrive at Flores’ downtown warehouse, destined for homes, hotels and restaurant kitchens across the city.
“People will have to pay a higher price. Whatever they charge us, we will pass on to the consumer,” Flores said from his section of the larger complex, the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market.
No matter what happens in January, Flores says he has no option but to keep importing produce from Mexico. The tomato-growing season in California lasts four months, from August to November, he says. The rest of the year, he gets the produce from the Mexican states of Sinaloa, Baja California and Sonora.
His team stacks boxes upon boxes of tomatoes in every size and shade of red, plus some shiny green ones for making zesty tomatillo sauce.
“Any tariff is an added tax that impacts all of us, including those who buy a pound, two pounds, or a thousand or 10,000 pounds,” said Flores, who has lived in Los Angeles for 40 years and is originally from the Mexican state of Morelos.
Trump has pronounced his love of tariffs, presumably for raising revenue and protecting US industries against imports, but he avoids speaking about the inflationary effect or the impact of potential retaliation from the United States’ top three trading partners.
Officials from Mexico, Canada and China and major industry groups have warned that the tariffs Trump proposes would harm the economies of all involved, cause inflation to spike and damage job markets.
“The president should have first seen how much this will impact everyone before speaking,” Flores said.


Biden readies $725 million arms aid package for Ukraine, sources say

Updated 28 November 2024
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Biden readies $725 million arms aid package for Ukraine, sources say

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden’s administration is preparing a $725 million weapons package for Ukraine, two US officials said on Wednesday, as the outgoing president seeks to bolster the government in Kyiv before leaving office in January.
According to an official familiar with the plan, the Biden administration plans to provide a variety of anti-tank weapons from US stocks to blunt Russia’s advancing troops, including land mines, drones, Stinger missiles, ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).
The package is also expected to include cluster munitions, which are typically found in Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rockets fired by HIMARS launchers, according to the notification, seen by Reuters.
The formal notification to Congress of the weapons package could come as soon as Monday, one official said.
The contents and size of the package could change in the coming days ahead of Biden’s expected signature.
It marks a steep uptick in size from Biden’s recent use of so-called Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the US to draw from current weapons stocks to help allies in an emergency.
Recent PDA announcements have typically ranged from $125 million to $250 million. Biden has an estimated $4 billion to $5 billion in PDA already authorized by Congress that he is expected to use before Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
The United States has not exported land mines in decades, and their use is controversial because of the potential harm to civilians. Although more than 160 countries have signed a treaty banning their use, Kyiv has been asking for them since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in early 2022 and Russian forces have used them on the front lines.
Russian forces currently are making gains in Ukraine at the fastest rate since the early days of the 2022 invasion, taking an area half the size of London over the past month, analysts and war bloggers said this week.
The United States expects Ukraine to use the mines in its own territory, though it has committed not to use them in areas populated with its own civilians.
Trump on Wednesday tapped Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who presented him with a plan to end the war in Ukraine, to serve as special envoy for the conflict. Quickly winding down the Ukraine war was one of Trump’s central campaign promises, though he has avoided discussing how he would do so.