
Issue No 55		26 May 2000

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Why Solidarity Messages Mean Something

By Andrew Casey

Messages of international solidarity can be effective tools in workers' disputes, a visiting Indonesian union official told Workers' Online this week.

Ms Hemasari Dharmabumi - who is an organiser of Hotel workers in Indonesia - said that solidarity messages were important on two levels among her members.

" Firstly it is an encouragement to my people to continue the struggle for union rights , to be more assertive and confident about the issues they are promoting.

" Secondly if a local company knows that union members are well-connected internationally they get worried. More than a little worried.," Ms Dharmabumi said with a smile.

" You see global forces are unpredictable. The local employer feels he has no control over global forces therefore they get very worried about messages of solidarity from overseas."

Hemasari Dharmabumi, in Australia this week, visited the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, which is the sister hotel union organisation in this country.

Hemasari is currently the Indonesian representative for the IUF, the international peak council covering trade unions in the food, agricultural, hotel, restaurant and catering industries industry. In Australia the LHMU is affiliated to the same international.

Through the IUF Hemasari is eager to promote cross-border union councils of hotel workers employed by the same hotel group in different countries.

" As a practical example I would like to see a Hyatt Union Council which would bring together Hyatt workers from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia and other parts of South-East Asia."

Hyatt regional management is now in Djakarta, the capital of Indonesia.

" The management from different Hyatt hotels in this part of the world get together to compare notes - especially about union activity - why shouldn't the workers in Hyatt also get together?"

This international action by Hyatt union members would probably send Peter Reith into an apoplexy.

After all it sounds very much like the 'pattern bargaining' that Peter Reith hates .... but on an international scale.

Hemasari sees it differently :" This would be very practical and valuable international solidarity."

" The LHMU has provided us with other examples of very practical international solidarity. Your union has helped us to translate the LHMU document Our Unions Our Workplace which we use effectively in local level education programs for hotel workers."

At the moment there are at least five different union groupings vying to represent the several million Indonesian hotel and restaurant workers, but the IUF aim is to bring all hotel workers into one union federation.

On the day Hemasari Dharmabumi visited the LHMU offices the main English language newspaper in Indonesia, The Jakarta Post, was carrying a story about a victory of Indonesian hotel workers who had struck in the middle of an international tournament - the Asia-Pacific Bridge Federation.

The result: the members quickly got pay and health insurance increases.

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Issue 55 contents

Interview: The University of Rupert
National Tertiary Education Union president Dr Carolyn Allport on News Corp's move into tertiary education and the Universitas 21 experiment.

International: The Unionist Who Sparked a Coup
Workers Online's Fiji expert Andrew Casey profiles one of the men at the centre of the crisis, detained PM Mahendra Chaudry

Unions: The Call to Action
The Australian Services Union is leading the push into the call centre industry. But winning these new workplaces is a major challenge.

Politics: Workplace Gladiators
Peter Reith as Russell Crowe? That's the image Labor IR spokesman Arch Bevis conjured up in a frecent address to the Industrial Relations Society.

History: How to be a Good Unionist
It's 1917, WWI rages and federal public servants are given these rules on how to dischare their responsibility as members.

Legal: The Price of Solidarity
Intimidation, threats and even murder still await many workers who attempt to organize in a number of countries around the world, says a new ILO report.

Review: Inconvenient History
In may be cold comfort to Republicans, but the vote for Federation was every bit as tempestuous as this collection of articles shows.

Satire: World Bank Caves In
In a victory for Seattle protestors, international monetarists have decreed that global utopia to begin immediately.

» Fiji Faces International Union Blockade

» Workers Return to Dump Reith's Third Wave

» Budget Raises More Questions than Answers

» Teachers Finally Achieve Satisfaction

» FairWear Campaign Targets Uniforms

» Rio Tinto Appeals for Industrial Peace

» Beer Hike Sparks Worker Concerns

» Libs Fail to Block Family Friendly Laws

» No Joy For 'Back Door' Pete

» Angry Truckies Converge on Border

» Unions Dues Test Case Looms

» Why Solidarity Messages Mean Something

» Radio Free East Timor Rocks

» The Soapbox

» Sport

» Trades Hall

» Tool Shed

» Neale's Spot On!

» Silence on the GST

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