JAKARTA – Secretary of Labor, Muhammad Hanif Dhakiri thought, the protection and the increasing welfare of the workers should be in the first place to cultivate the palm oil plantations and industries in Indonesia. 

“The most important thing is that every regulation should be implemented by palm oil companies to increase the protection in palm oil plantation,” Hanif said, Tuesday (12/5).

Hanif said that when opening the National Seminar about the Palm Oil Plantation Workers’ Protection in Indonesia which was held in Medan, North Sumatera.

To make sure that the implementation of the regulation could run well in palm oil plantation and industries, his side will put a supervisor of the labor in the central and regional areas so that they get the special attention to the workers protection.

“The supervisors should be more intencive to monitor or supervise the palm oil plantations and industries in the field and give sanction to whom breaking the regulation,” he said as quoted from the Public Relation page.

Based on the data from Ministry of Labor, 2014, the supervisors were 1.776 men. The ideal ones are 4.452 men. So there are lacks about 2.676 men. 

He thought, palm oil plantation and industrial sectors have the different characteristic one to another. These sectors are identical to the seasonal workers and do not need high skilled workers so these emerge the labor problems.

 “The usual problems happening are the unclear connection of the workers in palm oil plantations, the  small normative requirements, the salary, and no social guarantees for the workers,” Hanif mentioned.

 Beside that, the palm oil workers are susceptible to loose their works because of the one side firing, the high targets involving the kids, the limitation of awareness, the infrastructure and safety tools and the workers health, and also the limitation to make union. (T3)