The Declining Pancasila Industrial Relations and the Increasing Industrial Conflicts: Research Findings from Karawang- Indonesia

In Indonesia’s New Order governance, violations occurred, in which Pancasila Industrial Relation (HIP) was employed as an instrument to give pressure and intimidate the labors. Thus, this concept is considered defective among labors. As democratization opens up the room for political opportunity structure, many labor organizations compete to strengthen their identity and do various movements to fulfill their aspiration. Even though there has been the biggest labor organization which was formed during the New Order era namely Serikat Pekerja Seluruh Indonesia, other regional labor movements, religious movements, and other ideology-based movement were also formed to enforce the implementation of industrial relations that match the principles of their movements. The result of a preliminary study done in Karawang District, at least four factors have been identified to count for the decline in Pancasila industrial relations. First, the law of labors does not strictly set HIP as the basic principle of industrial relations in Indonesia. Second, broader access to the politic domain has been utilized by some labor organizations to forcibly implement other principles of industrial relations outside the HIP. Third, direct regional election allows any candidate to obtain supports from labor organizations by tolerating any ideas or actions of the organizations. Fourth, tight competition occurs as new labor organizations were formed that the identity of the movement became highly significant. Consequently, sporadic solutions had to be used to solve various industrial conflicts according to the preferences of labor organizations and businessman. Keywords— industrial relations; Pancasila; industrial conflicts; Karawang