LABOR ISSUES IN INDONESIA, 1979-1995:
PRESS CLIPPINGS AND OTHER DOCUMENTATION FROM THE INDOC ARCHIVES
On microfiche
International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam
Background
INDOC (Indonesisch Documentatie en Informatie Centrum) was set up in Leiden, the Netherlands in 1979 as a nonprofit, voluntary foundation for the purpose of gathering and disseminating authentic contemporary information on the "other" Indonesia, especially concerning issues of social development and human rights. To that end it maintained its own special documentation service in Indonesia to scan both the national and regional press in order to clip articles on a number of selected themes, based on OECD categories, that were sent to the office in Leiden on a weekly basis. In addition INDOC itself subscribed to a range of newspapers, weeklies and other periodicals from or concerning Indonesia. Most of the material thus assembled is in the Indonesian language, although there are some clippings in English as well. INDOC arranged the clippings in Leiden as systematically as possible and used this material as the basis for its own publications (mostly in Dutch), such as brochures and annual reports, but also to be able to provide sources for interested researchers and others working on Indonesia. In 1995 INDOC terminated its activities, which have now been assumed in a somewhat modified form by the IISH.
Labor as theme
Labor, broadly conceived, was one of the themes on which INDOC regularly collected information. Trying to be as comprehensive as possible, its documentation service kept track of many crucial issues of contemporary significance, building up an archive in the course of the years that includes information on, among others:
— Labor policy
— Employment, wages and living conditions
— Working conditions
— Occupational safety
— Dismissals
— Voluntary employment
— Night work
— Collective labor agreements
— Employers organizations
— Labor disputes and strikes
— Right to strike
— Minimum wages
— Rural workers - including plantation workers
— Seasonal workers
— Occupations, including: bus drivers, becaj drivers, medical personnel, pharmacists, teachers and others
— Women workers
— Migrant workers
— Harbor workers
— Forestry workers
— Foreign workers
— Child labor
— Tenant farming
— The nucleus estate and small holders
— Others
Importance for research: Microfiche edition
In 1996 the INDOC clippings archive on labor issues was acquired by the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. In order better to preserve these fragile materials and of course to make them more accessible for research in other locations in the Netherlands and abroad, the IISH undertook to have them microfilmed. Now in cooperation with MMF, the materials covering the years 1979-1995 have been issued in a convenient microfiche edition, which will greatly increase their usefulness for scholarly research. Generally speaking the clippings are arranged in chronological order, at times with further divisions by subthemes. Researchers browsing the collection on microfiche will discover many interesting items from sources in Indonesia itself that are otherwise difficult to find or completely inaccessible in other parts of the world.
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