a truck fully loaded with oil palm fruits in Indonesia

Project

Strengthening Social Compliance in Indonesia’s Palm Oil Sector

Project details

Duration

1 December 2023 - 27 March 2025

Budget

US$ 2,000,000

Development partner(s)

The United States Department of Labour, Office of Child Labour, Forced Labour, and Human Trafficking

Reference

IDN/23/02/USA

Location

National, Sumatra, and Kalimantan Regions

Contact

Yunirwan Gah, National Project Coordinator, [email protected]

Additional details

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The project objective is to improve the implementation of social compliance systems that promote acceptable conditions of work and access to labour rights, including the elimination of forced labour, in supply chains.

Project synopsis

Palm oil is widely used in consumer goods, industrial products, and biofuels. Indonesia is a major producer, supplying 57 per cent of the world's palm oil. The industry contributes significantly to the country's export earnings and GDP. It is also an important source of employment, with an estimated 17 million workers directly employed in the sector. Despite various industry initiatives to promote compliance with labour standards, both national and international, the workers in this sector face decent work challenges, including limited access to fundamental rights, low wages, and excessive working hours. Read more

Project strategy

The project will adopt a two-pronged strategy, combining ‘institutional development’ and ‘direct support’ in its interventions. The ‘institutional development’ component focuses on strengthening the capacity of government and all relevant stakeholders to address decent work deficits facing the palm oil sector, while the ‘direct support’ interventions focus on targeted action to tackle specific problems faced by enterprises/plantations and smallholders engaged in the palm oil sector, with particular attention being paid to women and youth.

Geographic scope

In Indonesia, national-level activities are implemented in Jakarta, while activities at the provincial and local levels target the provinces of Sumatra and Kalimantan.

Project scope of work

The Project will be implemented over 36 months in its first phase in Indonesia’s palm oil sector. The project outcomes, specific outputs and activities are presented in detail below:

Improved actionable resources to support establishment of worker-driven social compliance system.

The core of the products under this Outcome is envisaged to be global in nature, which would allow it to be easily adapted to suit the challenges and opportunities in other sectors and countries. In the first phase, project resources will customize the chosen tools for the Indonesian palm oil sector, reflecting the needs of the stakeholders gathered from the consultations. Tools designed for employers will prioritize capacity building on due diligence and creating workplace improvement plans to enhance compliance with national laws and relevant international labour standards. Meanwhile, tools for workers will focus on increasing their awareness and understanding of their rights and empowering them to actively drive compliance within their workplaces, including through participation in developing and implementing improvement plans and monitoring and reporting on progress. The language will be local and accessible, with due consideration to the low literacy levels in the sector’s large rural workforce.
Strengthened capacity of palm oil enterprises to implement worker-driven social compliance systems to address labour rights violations, including indicators of forced labour.

Under this outcome, the knowledge and actionable resources developed under Outcome 1 will be implemented in the participating palm oil companies. Data from the pilot will be collected and shared with the industry and will underscore the development of future strategies on worker driven compliance systems in the sector. Given its unique tripartite structure, in advancing its mandate, the ILO works closely with the organizations of workers and employers set up to organize and advance the collective interests of its members. The project will work with the private sector through the sectoral organization of employers both Apindo and GAPKI, as well as directly with enterprises that are its members.
Strengthened capacity of labour unions and workers in the palm oil sectors/sub-sectors to drive worker-driven social compliance and advocate for and access their rights.

The capacity of unions to effectively engage with enterprises is a critical factor in advancing workers’ rights through worker-driven social compliance in the sector. By supporting their freedom of association and collective bargaining, workers can have a voice in how their workplace should function. Under this outcome, the project will support trade unions to effectively engage with enterprises to drive the social compliance systems developed in Outcome 1.
Strengthened social dialogue for an enabling environment to implement social compliance systems.

The previous ILO project, advancing workers’ rights in Indonesia’s palm oil sector, facilitated the establishment of a bipartite Employers-Unions Forum JAGASAWITAN for sustainable palm oil. This Forum is meant to serve as a coordination, communication, and sectoral bi-partite platform. This platform is in its initial phase, with technical operational procedures under development. The project will help operationalize the forum and aims to sustain this positive development, as sectoral social dialogue could facilitate an enabling environment for worker-driven social compliance to create lasting positive impacts.

Project beneficiaries

The project’s direct beneficiaries are the trade unions, federations, and confederations representing workers across the palm oil supply chain, employers’ associations and policymakers, and staff from national and local institutions, among them various government ministries and technical departments.

Implementing partners

The identified local partners for implementing this project are workers’ and employers’ organizations in the palm oil supply chain. These are the federations and confederations that form the Indonesian Palm Oil Trade Union Network (JAPBUSI), established with the support of the previous ILO project targeting the palm oil sector. The project also works closely with the GAPKI and Apindo.

Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Agriculture, Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs, and Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas) are also the key partners of this project.

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