YAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia has taken a step towards approving President Joko Widodo’s questionable task-building bill after Parliament’s legislative committee and government ministers approved saturday the most recent edition for its vote next week.
A coalition of 15 activist groups, adding up several industry unions, condemned the resolution on Sunday, accusing the government and lawmakers of completing the deliberations in secret during a rare hearing that expires overnight over a weekend.
The coalition asked all staff to sign up for their national strike scheduled for October 6 and 8 to protest the bill, which organizers said would involve five million employees.
The so-called “buses” bill, which aims to revise more than 70 existing laws in a singles vote, is the president’s flagship measure to accelerate the country’s economic reforms and investment climate.
Global investors have been watching hard to see if the bill is diluted in parliamentary debates as southeast Asian economics tries to compete for production investments relocated from China.
At a hearing on Saturday, which ended hours before midnight, representatives of seven of the nine factions of the legislative committee approved the invoice for parliamentary vote, while two factions rejected it.
Several ministers led by leading Economy Minister Airlangga Hartarto also passed the latest edition of the bill, which contained some adjustments to the government’s original proposal, as another formula for cutting compensation for compulsory dismissal.
“This bill will be deburocratization and efficiency,” Airlangga said in the televised audience.
Workers opposing the bill argued that the law would be a “red carpet for investors, expanding the strength of the oligarchy” not only undermining the protection of employees, but also the lands of farmers and indigenous communities, according to the coalition’s communiqué.
Greenpeace activist Arie Rompas said at another press conference on Sunday that his organization was contemplating legal action that they could take if Parliament passed the bill. environmental disasters.
Government officials insisted that the bill would not harm staff coverage or the environment and that it is mandatory to attract investment and generate jobs.
(Report through Gayatri Suroyo and Maikel Jefriando; Editing through Christina Fincher and Shri Navaratnam)
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