REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Association of Trade Unions (Aspek Indonesia) and Confederation of Indonesian Workers (KSPI) declared their support for presidential hopeful Prabowo Subianto and his running mate, Hatta Rajasa in presidential election this year. Vice President of Aspek Indonesia, Mira Sumirat said that Aspek Indonesia followed KSPI's step in supporting Prabowo-Hatta because both figures would fight for workers' interests.

"Our national consensus (Munas) decided that we would follow KSPI to vote for Prabowo-Hatta to improve the fate of workers," Sumirat said on Wednesday.

He asked all workers to support this candidate. KSPI previously asked for the minimum wage of workers up to 30 percent in 2015. KSPI president, Said Iqbal said that Indonesia would face the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). In the ASEAN single market mechanism, a country must protect workers' welfare to avoid industrial sectors from mass layoffs.

The minimum wage of workers in Indonesia is far behind the neighboring countries, such as Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia.

 In fact, Indonesian labor productivity is no less favorable than workers in other ASEAN countries. The minimum wage of workers in Indonesia is only 2.4 million IDR, compared to Thailand (3.2 million IDR), Malaysia (3.2 million IDR) and Philippines (3.6 million IDR), though the cost of living in Indonesia relatively equals to these countries.

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