UNITE, STRENGTHEN SOLIDARITY, FIGHT TOGETHER AGAINST THE FASCIST REGIME
“Workers, farmers, students, the urban poor, unite to fight for democracy…”
That is a line from the song ‘PEMBEBASAN’ (Liberation), which is always sung at International Workers’ Day commemorations and invariably accompanies the march to the seat of power: the Central Java Governor’s Office. This time, the march was organised by the Joint Alliance of Trade Unions and organisations in Central Java, attended by around 500 people.
During the march, which covered a distance of over 8 kilometres, representatives from each organisation took turns delivering speeches as part of their propaganda and to enlighten both the marchers and members of the public along the route.
A variety of organisational paraphernalia, including a theatrical rat statue, was prepared to symbolise the significance of International Workers’ Day. May Day is not merely a national holiday; rather, International Workers’ Day is a historic day for the working class—a day of resistance. Every 1 May, millions of workers across the world take to the streets, voicing their resistance and calling for class struggle. On that day, 140 years ago, hundreds of workers in Chicago, USA, were shot upon whilst fighting for more humane working hours. The workers’ struggle succeeded, and its results are still felt today: an 8-hour working day for workers worldwide!
However, workers now face the reality of the implementation of contract work and outsourcing schemes, under which they have no job security or guarantees. Furthermore, workers employed under these schemes are denied other basic rights such as standard wages, leave, the right to organise, and severance pay. Furthermore, in Indonesia, after working an 8-hour shift, contract and outsourced workers in various factories are still required to work from home to meet targets that were not met at the factory. Not only do they not receive overtime pay for this additional work, but they are also suspended the following day.
According to data from the Central Statistics Agency in 2024, around 60 % of Indonesian workers are in the informal sector. Of all formal workers, a third work under contract or outsourcing schemes. Such schemes systematically shift business risks from companies to workers. Indonesia implements this through three different instruments: Fixed-Term Employment Contracts (PKWT), outsourcing, and platform partnerships.
The Omnibus Law and Government Regulation No. 35 of 2021 on Fixed-Term Employment Contracts (PKWT) have removed restrictions on the types of work that can be outsourced. As a result, companies can now apply fixed-term employment contracts for longer periods, accumulating up to five years without automatic conversion to permanent status. This scheme makes Indonesia one of the countries with the most lenient contract systems in Asia.
Furthermore, the conflict between Iran and Israel and the US has caused the prices of oil, gas, plastics, and a number of industrial raw materials to soar. In addition to driving up the prices of energy and industrial raw materials, the war in the Middle East has caused the rupiah’s exchange rate against the US dollar to weaken. The rupiah hit a record low. On 23 April 2026, the exchange rate fell to 17,308 per US dollar.
Consequently, a wave of redundancies has hit the mining, CPO, paper, garment and electronics industries. A number of mining companies in East and South Kalimantan plan to lay off hundreds of their workers this year. Cuts to coal production quotas have resulted in around 20,000 pieces of heavy machinery ceasing operations and 50,000 workers in the mining services sector losing their jobs.
The same situation is affecting around 90,000 workers at 10 manufacturing companies in East Java, Central Java and West Java. Employers are struggling after raw material prices soared due to the war in the Middle East, which has disrupted logistics distribution. Meanwhile, consumer demand is sluggish due to weakened purchasing power.
Here, too, workers in the most vulnerable positions are rarely included in formal discussions. Digital platform drivers work as ‘partners’ without a minimum wage or the right to organise. Freelance couriers are paid per parcel and must cover their own operational costs. Field sales staff for consumer products are paid on a commission basis against daily sales targets. Meanwhile, the majority of cleaning, security and administrative staff are on contract with earnings at the very bottom of the minimum wage scale.
In such a dire economic situation, the Prabowo-Gibran administration—as a symbol of the fascist regime succeeding Suharto’s New Order regime—is instead focusing on its flagship projects: the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) scheme and the Red and White Village Cooperatives. Both programmes have relatively minor economic impact compared to their colossal budgets. For example, the Free Nutritious Meals programme has been allocated Rp 335 trillion in the 2026 budget, a six-fold increase from the previous year’s expenditure. Meanwhile, the number of Free Nutritious Meals kitchens managed by the Indonesian National Army (TNI) stands at 452 units, with a target of 2,000 units. Meanwhile, the Indonesian National Police manage 672 units, with a target of 1,500 nutritional service units. Furthermore, President Prabowo has symbolically inaugurated 80,081 Merah Putih cooperatives, using the presidential instruction as a “command stick”.
Whereas during theSoehartoera“The Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) enter the village”programme was implemented, some thirty years laterPresident Prabowo Subiantois now rolling out the“The Indonesian National Army (TNI) joins the village cooperative” project. The involvement of TNI personnel in the construction of the Merah Putih Cooperative building carries a risk of abuse of military power. Although described as being based on mutual cooperation, this cooperative relies on funding from the State Bank as capital.
As the project has progressed, the government has also involved the military in the construction of Red and White Village Cooperative buildings in 75,266 villages. This military involvement is regulated solely through a cooperation agreement with PT Agrinas Pangan Nusantara, a state-owned company tasked with constructing the buildings.
The cooperative building project is clearly not a non-combat military operation, one of the functions of the TNI. This involvement is not even one of the functions regulated by the TNI Act, namely assisting the government in its duties in the regions.
In this project, the military has been involved from the drafting of the proposal, the submission of the budget, the application for a bank loan, the drawing up of contracts with contractors, the physical construction, reporting to Agrinas, right through to the day-to-day supervision of the project. This constitutes intimidation from the outset against people who disagree with or are critical of government policy.
May Day, commemorated every 1 May, serves as a moment to demand rights such as a living wage and decent work. However, amidst the shadow of today’s multi-crisis of capitalism—ranging from economic, geopolitical, and ecological crises—the working class faces a broader battlefield than merely the economic issues mentioned earlier or political rights such as freedom of association. The working class is at the forefront of the struggle for an ecological agenda, which includes the right to decent housing, a healthy environment, and working conditions that guarantee safety and health.
The climate crisis, driven by the globalisation of capitalist production, has produced ecological impacts that transcend national borders and are now planetary in scale. Global warming has exceeded the 1.5°C threshold compared to the pre-industrial period (1850–1900). Consequently, ecological disasters are occurring with increasing intensity and increasingly deadly consequences. The massive floods in Sumatra at the end of last year claimed more than 600 lives, the majority of whom were working-class people. A landslide at the tailings storage facility of PT QMB New Energy Materials in the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) in February 2026 killed workers. Previously, the breach of PT HYNC’s tailings facility due to flooding exposed over a thousand residents of Labota Village and industrial workers to heavy metal waste.
Environmental issues are, in fact, labour issues because they form part of the conditions of life. In the production of the means of life, this is understood as a metabolic process between humans and nature. When this metabolic relationship is damaged or subjected to reckless exploitation for the accumulation of capital, an ecological crisis becomes inevitable. In The Dialectics of Nature, Friedrich Engels demonstrates that the exploitation of nature under capitalism results in ecological damage for which a direct price must be paid.
Environmental damage also occurs in factories, mines and plantations. Engels described how industrialisation created working conditions that were a breeding ground for disease: the air was filled with dust, chemical fumes and lacked oxygen. Engels noted that these conditions led to a range of serious problems, such as respiratory disorders, asthma and even tuberculosis. Similarly, in the mining sector, workers are exposed to dust, toxic gases, and a lack of oxygen, which causes diseases such as ‘black spittle’ due to the accumulation of coal particles in the lungs. Today, this grim picture can be found in industrial areas such as Weda (North Maluku) and Morowali (Central Sulawesi), where workers face the risk of work-related illnesses, exposure to toxic waste, and ecological disasters.
It is clear that the working class bears the heaviest burden of the ecological crisis, both in the workplace and in their living environments. This positions workers as a class with an objective interest in fighting for a decent environment. Therefore, the destruction of the world must be stopped because it is incompatible with humanity and justice. The role of ending this situation cannot be left to other forces; it must be taken up by the working class as the primary agent of change.
The working class has a historic duty to lead the way in creating a healthy environment for all living beings on Earth. However, the task of emancipating the people will certainly be less onerous if it is undertaken in partnership with civil society movements (the agrarian movement, the environmental movement, the women’s movement, the indigenous peoples’ movement, the urban poor movement, and other people’s movements). The transition towards a socialist society is a prerequisite for ensuring ecological sustainability, social equality, and human freedom in a more substantive sense.