REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Confederation of Indonesian Labor Unions (KSPI) plans to sue the government over the presence of foreign workers allegedly depriving local inhabitants' of their rights in getting jobs.

The confederation will file citizen lawsuits against the government simultaneously in 20 district courts in 20 provinces throughout Indonesia, KSPI President Said Iqbal told the press here Thursday. "The reasoning for the lawsuit is because the constitutional right of citizens to find jobs has been ignored," he said.

Hundreds of thousands of unskilled foreigners work in Indonesia, which is against the Law No 13 Year 2003 on Manpower, he claimed. The law only allowed skilled foreigners to work in Indonesia. He suspected that many unskilled foreigners work in the country illegally at present.

Jobs requiring no special skills should be given to local workers, he stated. He had information that hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals work in Indonesia at present, he also claimed.

KSPI will set up command posts to collect data on unskilled foreign workers in Indonesia. Said Iqbal called on the House of Representatives to form a special committee to discuss the presence of illegal foreign workers in Indonesia. The confederation plans to stage a rally protesting the presence of illegal foreign workers on February 6 in Jakarta.

Earlier, on December 27, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said that rumors of Indonesia being flooded by illegal foreign workers, mainly from China, were slanderous and untrue. "I want to remind you once again, one should not believe the slanderous rumors which project foreign labor and foreign investment as a threat to local jobs and that the domestic economy will be flooded by foreign workforce. I have to say it is untrue," asserted the president.

According to the rumors, nearly 10 to 20 million workers from China had illegally entered Indonesia, he added. "The information that I received is that there are, indeed, Chinese workers, but their number is only 21,000. They come in and go back because there are a lot of things that we are not yet ready to do. When we are ready, we will use our own labor force," he said.

Ikuti Whatsapp Channel Republika