Indonesia has stepped on a new milestone in improving its social security system by adding unemployment benefits or known as Jaminan Kehilangan Pekerjaan (JKP). To continue the efforts on reforming the entire system, the country will need active participation from all stakeholders, including workers and employers. While government regularly engages representatives of workers and employers at the national level, voices from regional and local stakeholders also need to be heard.

Against this backdrop, ILO initiated a series of bipartite discussions in four provinces: Banten, West Java, Central Java and East Java. The events that were held on April-May 2022 attended by more than 150 workers and employers’ representatives from factories in each province. They shared their challenges of participating in the current system and recommendations for future improvement.

“Workers and employers play crucial role in providing inputs to improve social protection system. Today, we will discuss together what we can do to better protect the workers and the reform we would like to see in the future,” said Ippei Tsuruga, ILO’s Programme Manager on Social Protection, during the last session held in Bandung on 22 May 2022.

Retno Pratiwi, Director of Social Protection at MoM, emphasized the importance of providing comprehensive understanding of social security to all workers. “Many workers do not really understand the principles of social security, why they need the protection and why they have to contribute. Without this understanding, it is difficult to achieve the coverage goal. I hope all participants today can actively discuss and provide recommendations to strengthen our system,” Retno said when opening the last session.

During the event, Elly Rosita Silaban, Chairperson of the Confederation of All Indonesian Trade Unions (KSBSI) as a representative of workers, highlighted the importance of extending coverage to informal workers. “Many people decided to work on the digital platform for flexibility. They are aware that they are at high risk of getting work injury. However, only few of them are aware of available social security scheme. This is our homework as trade unions to also pay attention to workers in informal setting and advocate better protection for them,” she explained.

Agreed with Elly, Komarudin, Vice President of the Indonesian Employers’ Association (Apindo) West Java, during his presentation, also suggested government to extend social security coverage to all workers, including those who are belong to informal group. “The principal of social protection is risk sharing between employers and workers. Greater participation, including from informal workers, means better protection for all workers,” he said.

For formal workers, he proposed the government to review the contribution share. “The efforts of improving quality of social protection system should not add burden to the employers as our shares are already around 70 percent of total contribution. We need to maintain our competitiveness in the region. Otherwise, we will lose many investment opportunities,” he added.

In response to Komar’s statement, Untung Riyadi, Member of Social Security Advisory Board (DJSN), reminded the employers on their compliance of paying contribution. “Social protection should provide welfare and benefit to both worker and employer. Through social dialogue, we can always discuss and provide critiques to the system. We understand the concern from employers on the contribution. However, employers also need to maintain their compliance and register all workers according to the applicable rules,” he said.

Prior conducting bipartite discussion in each province, the ILO organized a series of training in four cities to enhance their knowledge on social protection for workers. Under social protection programme funded by Government of Japan, ILO will continue to support the reformation of social protection in Indonesia, mainly focusing on the establishment of universal pension. The programme will continue to facilitate national dialogues and produce knowledge products to support tripartite discussions on social protection.