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Indonesia is a nation of slaves,
slaves among nations,
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slaves for other nations"
(Pramoedya Ananta Toer)
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"Without the workers' deft hands,
Adidas wouldn't make 14 trillion of profit!"
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This is how large and
mid-sized cities in Asia look like.
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In these cities,
you will see wide roads,
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flyovers, toll roads,
apartments, and high-rise buildings.
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In the last 30 years,
Singapore, Hong Kong,
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Seoul, Manila,
Kuala Lumpur, and Jakarta
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competed for becoming
the economic capital of Asia.
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The strange thing is,
as those megacities in Asia grow,
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so do the similarities
among them.
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Their business districts and
busy shopping malls are always crowded.
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Their shopping centres
look similar.
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And people shop for the same products
... from the same brands.
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The roads are
congested and polluted,
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and the sky is
constantly polluted, too.
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Advertising billboards
keep on persuading consumers
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to buy cars and apartments,
to travel and shop abroad,
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and to keep on buying
more and more consumer goods.
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Welcome to Jakarta,
the biggest metropolitan in Southeast Asia.
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During the night,
10 million people inhabit this city.
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But in the morning,
on weekdays,
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500,000 more rush in
from surrounding areas.
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Jakarta
is rich,
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rich and greedy...
and spoiled.
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To feed the people
of this greedy city,
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at least 2,000 tonnes of rice
must be delivered every day.
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To electrify its billboards,
stadiums, offices, and apartments,
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Jakarta needs 6,000 megawatts
of power per day.
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To support Jakarta and
its luxurious life,
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thousands of street vendors cater
to those who work in high-rise buildings.
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Jakarta depends on construction
workers, waiters, street sweepers,
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and all the
working class people.
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Come, investments, come!
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Located on
Jakarta's coast
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it is the international
trading port Tanjung Priuk,
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the largest and busiest
seaport in Indonesia.
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Tanjung Priuk port
was built in 1877,
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and it is connected to
Java's railways networks.
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In colonial times,
through this port,
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produce from the plantations
in Java's highlands
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was shipped out to
the world market.
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From the rubber plantations
in Java's interior,
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renowned tyre producer Pirelli
obtained its raw materials.
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Today, Tanjung Priuk is still a
valuable asset for Indonesia's economy.
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Raw materials and machineries are imported
through this vital port.
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Also, from this port, garments, textiles,
and footwear
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manufactured in Indonesia
are exported abroad.
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The constant coming and going
of ships through this port are a symbol
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of Indonesia's
two main economic policies:
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attracting foreign investments and
developing export-oriented industries.
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But to have one international
seaport was not enough.
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To attract
more investments,
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the government of Indonesia
built industrial estates
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and established bonded zones and
export processing zones.
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In the late 1980s, 4 industrial estates
were built along Jakarta's outskirts.
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And what happened
afterwards?
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Jakarta's outskirts changed very rapidly
and transformed into an industrial area.
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Japanese and
American car-makers
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flocked the Pulogadung Industrial Estate
in East Jakarta.
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Before long, Taiwanese, Korean,
and Singaporean investors
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invested their capital
in Indonesia,
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opened garments and textiles factories
in Cakung Bonded Zone in North Jakarta.
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They were lured by tax exemptions
and many other concessions.
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Each of these industrial estates
in the outskirts of Jakarta
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enjoys easy access to the
international seaport Tanjung Priuk.
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As foreign capital poured
into Indonesia,
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Greater Jakarta became even
more crowded with factories.
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Soon, there was no more land available
in Jakarta's industrial estates.
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Manufacturing industries were
badly in need of new land.
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They began to eye
the lowlands east of Jakarta.
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Since then, in the cities
east of Jakarta,
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including Bekasi, Karawang,
and Purwakarta,
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rows upon rows
of factories were built.
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As a Jakartan, the automotive and the
finance sector require you to be rich,
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so you can afford
to buy your own car.
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Listen, they whisper:
"Buy, buy...!"
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"...apart from that you will
experience the newest
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safety feature of
Honda, LaneWatch..."
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In competition
with other Asian cities,
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in September 2014, Jakarta hosted the
Indonesia International Motor Show again.
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This international event serves as a
showroom for Indonesia's auto industry.
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But are you aware where
these cars are manufactured?
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This is the true face
behind the show.
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Factories supplying spare parts
to Suzuki, Honda, and Toyota,
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as well as Mattel, Samsung,
Toshiba, and Panasonic,
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are all located in the
industrial areas east of Jakarta.
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Up until today, stretching from Bekasi and
Karawang down to Purwakarta,
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there are at least
7 gigantic industrial estates
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and warehousing facilities with access to
toll roads and the Tanjung Priuk port.
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These estates were all built
through offshore investments
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coming from
Korea, Japan, and China.
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Currently, Japanese investors
are pressuring Indonesia's government
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to speed up the construction of a new port
in Cilamaya in North Karawang,
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as they seek to send more
commodities to the world market.
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Indonesia will continue to build more
industrial estates, toll roads and seaports
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in order to attract
foreign investments
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and to meet the demands of
Foxconn, Toyota, Unilever,
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and other
manufacturing firms.
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The landscape you see east of Jakarta
is not unique to Indonesia.
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Bekasi and Karawang were developed
with the dream
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of competing with the industrial city
of Shenzhen in China.
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Countries in South Asia,
Southeast Asia, and East Asia
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must compete with one another by
building and expanding industrial estates.
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Industrial estates in Indonesia
are in competition
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with the same kind of estates
in Eastern China,
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in Mumbai, India, in Manila's neighbouring
provinces in the Philippines,
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the south of Bangkok, Thailand,
and so on.
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All Industrial estates aim to be
the best place for manufacturing,
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serving the
transnational giants.
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All estates rely on cheap labor
down to the lowest cost possible.
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"Hey workers! It's okay to protest, but if
you disturb public order, we'll crush you!"
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[Banner of a group of young people
used as thugs to attack unions etc.]
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Without a very strong reason,
why would these young women
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take a big risk
every morning?
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The risk to cross this toll road
on foot to get to the factory?
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They work
for Pou Chen.
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That is a Taiwanese company
that supplies athletic shoes to Nike.
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The company opened a factory in the
small town of Serang in Banten Province.
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In an industrial city like this,
everywhere you go,
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you will find young women who
came from neighbouring towns and provinces.
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Their wages are only
slightly above the minimum wage.
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About a quarter of their small wage
is spent on renting a cramped room.
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The rest is spent on food
and other necessities.
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If there is any money left, they send it
to their family in the hometown.
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Especially the industrial cities with
garment factories,
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textile factories and footwear factories
appear to be the cities of the youth.
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This is because factories
prefer only those who are young.
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Hundreds of kilometres
from Serang,
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in the Cakung Bonded Zone in North Jakarta,
we see the same scene.
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Thousands of
young women
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enter and leave the factories
before and after every work shift.
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Those who are not young enough or
who are not able to find a job in a factory
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try to make a living
as small traders.
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00:14:11,056 --> 00:14:17,751
Others try their luck
working abroad
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as plantation or
construction workers in Malaysia
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or as domestic workers
in Saudi Arabia.
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00:14:29,748 --> 00:14:32,747
Workers in Cakung Bonded Zone
are lowly paid.
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00:14:34,106 --> 00:14:37,217
They constantly suffer
from financial problems
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and are easy prey
for loan sharks.
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After very long and
tiring working hours,
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on the way home,
these women often rest
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at a traditional herbal shop
to relax their tired, sore muscles.
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It is also widely known
that many companies
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in Cakung
violate basic labour rights.
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In a company
supplying H&M
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the management will fire you immediately
if it finds out you are pregnant.
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Most of workers here have
only short-term contracts.
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Many companies illegally and arbitrarily
fire permanent workers.
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You will be re-employed only if you accept
the status as a contract worker.
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This change of status is, strangely,
described as:
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"Pemutihan" = "bleaching"
[here in the sense of "rebooting"]
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As an export-oriented
industrialized country,
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and in order to compete
with other countries in Asia for investors,
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the government of Indonesia blatantly sells
these young women as cheap labor...
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... as a comparative
advantage.
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00:16:10,300 --> 00:16:15,762
Meanwhile, the government ignores
blatant and widespread union busting
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while preaching to the workers
about increasing productivity
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and maintaining a harmonious
relationship with employers.
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Kokom and Lionel Messi
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Lionel Messi and many other
football stars are paid a lot of money
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as Adidas or Nike's
brand ambassadors.
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But Messi has never met
and does not know Kokom.
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00:17:12,197 --> 00:17:17,300
Until two years ago, Kokom used
to work in PT Panarub Dwikarya Benoa.
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"... who became the prime sponsor of the
World Cup. How much profit did they get?"
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PT Panarub Dwikarya Benoa
supplies shoes for Adidas.
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It is owned by Hendrik Sasmito,
a well-connected Indonesian businessman
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who once shook hands
with President Susilo Yudhoyono.
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00:17:34,290 --> 00:17:41,200
In 2012, Kokom and 1,300
of her fellow workers lost their jobs.
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They were fired illegally
after establishing a union
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00:17:47,619 --> 00:17:50,861
and demanding the payment of their wages
in accordance with the regulations.
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While Lionel Messi was busy playing
in Spain's football league every week
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Kokom and her union were still
demanding their rights.
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00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:05,937
Kokom is
not alone.
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Elsewhere, workers of state-owned toll
road management company, PT Jasa Marga,
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were also in a struggle
for the protection of their rights.
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Why wouldn't
they?
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00:18:19,030 --> 00:18:22,632
The workers along this highway
have worked for years
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00:18:22,900 --> 00:18:25,421
without any
job security.
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00:18:25,679 --> 00:18:29,414
They have a 3-month
employment contract
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00:18:29,663 --> 00:18:34,532
that gets renewed
again and again and again.
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00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:37,459
"Hey you, head of Jasa Marga!"
- Hey you, head of Jasa Marga!
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00:18:37,701 --> 00:18:39,318
Come down here!
- Come down here!
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00:18:39,554 --> 00:18:47,300
Settle... the dispute... in your company...
immediately...!"
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Another labor protest was waged
by the dock workers in Tanjung Priuk.
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"... twelve working hours,
from 8 am to 8 pm,
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00:19:03,151 --> 00:19:06,293
if you don't come to work, your wage
will be cut by forty thousand rupiahs."
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00:19:06,803 --> 00:19:09,239
Thousands of kilometres
from Tanjung Priuk
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00:19:09,491 --> 00:19:15,800
dock workers in Hong Kong protested
against low wages and long working hours.
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00:19:21,625 --> 00:19:27,900
Imagine, they were able
to sustain the strike for 40 days!
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00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:35,634
Also in Hong Kong, migrant workers
from Indonesia, the Philippines,
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00:19:35,881 --> 00:19:38,886
Thailand,
and other countries
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00:19:39,152 --> 00:19:42,597
firmly asserted that
they are workers...
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00:19:42,871 --> 00:19:44,501
... and not slaves.
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00:19:49,700 --> 00:19:56,420
Thirty years after the enforcement
of the export-oriented industrial policy,
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00:19:56,694 --> 00:20:01,500
Indonesia suffers from various crises,
wave after wave of crisis.
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00:20:03,488 --> 00:20:08,478
The investment-friendly and
export-oriented policy
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00:20:08,731 --> 00:20:11,346
as well as the extraction
of natural resources
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00:20:11,606 --> 00:20:15,800
have made only
a handful of the elite richer.
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00:20:18,219 --> 00:20:23,840
Throughout those years,
farming villages gradually disappeared,
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00:20:24,095 --> 00:20:29,800
replaced by rows of factories,
apartments, and shopping centres.
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00:20:31,591 --> 00:20:35,075
The people have been used
as a cheap reserve army of labor.
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00:20:37,281 --> 00:20:39,355
Since the wave
of industrialisation began,
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00:20:39,598 --> 00:20:42,787
the people of Bekasi
have lived in a polluted city.
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00:20:43,646 --> 00:20:47,387
Floods and droughts
come and go.
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00:20:49,900 --> 00:20:55,574
Once again, the whole story
is typical not only for Indonesia.
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00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:03,049
Land grabbing,
cheap labor policy,
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00:21:03,300 --> 00:21:09,430
short-term contracts,
outsourcing practices and union busting,
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all of this occurs
in many Asian countries.
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00:21:32,500 --> 00:21:36,084
But in many places
in Asia...
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...there are also many nameless people
who work tirelessly
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00:21:44,609 --> 00:21:48,939
to build democratic
and strong trade unions
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00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:51,535
and to build
workers' resistance.
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00:21:52,942 --> 00:21:55,558
"... this is a new phase
for the labor movement!"
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00:21:58,300 --> 00:21:59,472
The workers united...
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00:22:00,197 --> 00:22:04,198
We can support the workers in the
Phillippines, Indonesia, Vietnam,
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00:22:04,441 --> 00:22:08,132
in mainland China, or even
in Latin America, everywhere!"
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00:22:08,804 --> 00:22:10,140
... can never be defeated!
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00:22:10,606 --> 00:22:13,254
"The workers united,
can never be defeated!"
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- "... and today, thousands
of workers hold a rally..."
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00:22:17,557 --> 00:22:22,316
"It is happening now, thousands of
workers have crippled the industrial estate.
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00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:25,907
They assemble at one point,
at Lippo Cikarang Junction."
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00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:29,919
- "In Cikarang, West Java, workers
crippled the Cikarang Industrial Estate
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00:22:30,150 --> 00:22:32,692
demanding the repeal
of the outsourcing system."
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00:22:33,214 --> 00:22:34,744
- "Hold your left arm up!"
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00:22:34,967 --> 00:22:36,665
- "Long live the workers!"
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00:22:37,618 --> 00:22:40,826
- "If the workers in Bekasi move,
workers in other places will also move."