Workers in Indonesia strike for higher wages

JAKARTA - The Associated Press

Indonesian workers attend a rally to protest outsourcing to contract workers. AFP photo

Indonesian unions say more than 2 million factory workers have gone on a one-day strike across the country to call for higher wages and protest the hiring of contract workers.

National police spokesman Col. Agus Rianto says hundreds of thousands of laborers from more than 700 companies at 80 industrial estates took to the streets in protest yesterday.

Yoris Raweyai, chairman of the Confederation of Indonesian Workers’ Union, says workers want the government to revise a law allowing companies to hire temporary workers on one-year contracts without benefits.

Indonesia’s Constitutional Court ruled in January that the hiring practice is unconstitutional and violates workers’ rights. About 23,000 workers planned to march in the capital, Jakarta, yesterday afternoon, and some 15,000 police were expected to be deployed to safeguard the rally.