Jakarta (ANTARA) - President Joko Widodo's planned Omnibus Law on Employment Creation Act may hurt domestic workers, mainly because it will revise regulations on salary, working hours, and worker protection, a Confederation of Indonesian Labor Union official said. "Our concerns are that the Omnibus Law will harm labor because some of the regulations will allow foreign unskilled worker (to be employed), it will be a massive use of outsourcing, flexible working hours, and a change in payroll scheme from monthly to hourly," The Confederation of Indonesian Workers' Unions (KSPI) Chairman Said Iqbal said in a statement in Jakarta, Friday.

The union will reject the Omnibus Law, claiming it revises the Law No. 13 Year 2003 on Manpower, Iqbal remarked. He explained the monthly payroll scheme, which was now protected by the law, and serves as a safety net for labor who are not systematically impoverished by an unfair economic system.

The law has been aligned with a convention of the International Law Organization, according to Iqbal.

"(If the system is changed), companies will arbitrarily determine labor's working hours and the salary they should pay to us," he stated, adding that workers may receive a below-standard wage if it is paid per hour by the employer.

President Widodo (Jokowi) chaired a limited meeting of the Omnibus Law at Bogor Presidential Palace, West Java, Friday. He prompted his ministers to disclose the draft before it was submitted to the House of Representatives.

"We have to heed the people's demands and interests. Transparency is a process that we expect," the President remarked.

Since being elected to a second term in office, President Widodo had vowed to revise over 70 prevailing laws and synchronize them into a single law, a concept that was popular as the Omnibus Law. The President plans to file the draft with the House of Representatives in mid-January 2020. (INE)

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Translator: Prisca T Violetta/Genta Tenri
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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