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Organizing Strategies of the Labor NGOs in Democratizing Indonesia
Ist Teil von
Review of International and Area Studies, 2003-01, Vol.12 (3), p.91-111
Erscheinungsjahr
2003
Link zum Volltext
Quelle
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
Beschreibungen/Notizen
It was expected that the fall of Suharto in May 1998 would provide Indonesian labor NGOs with an opportunity to organize an umbrella labor union. However, the opportunity has not been realized, & this paper aims to explain the reasons for this failure. The failure is often attributed to the fact that some NGO activists who regarded labor movements as 'businesses' obstructed a broad solidarity among labor NGOs. In contrast to the popular position, this paper questions the strategies that the labor NGOs have implemented for organization. The main argument is that the NGOs have generally preferred decentralization to centralization of their movements. Specifically, this paper proves how Indonesia's labor NGOs utilized the defensive effects of regional 'scattered-ness' from their experience during the Suharto's regime. Even after the downfall of the authoritarian regime, most labor NGO activists appeared to have applied the same diffusive strategy to protect themselves from the military's intervention & the prevalent horizontal violence. This paper also suggests that Indonesian labor NGOs strive for 'independence' rather than 'influence' of the working class independence, not only from the state but also from the centralized national unions. This paper interprets this tendency as a type of "social movement unionism" of the Third World. 1 Table, 33 References. Adapted from the source document.