Outsourcing Work System Harms Workers and Labor Unions
Author: Jacob Ersete
Freelance Journalist
Outsourcing is a term in a work system that requires other parties to employ a number of workers in a company that is not directly under the management of the company concerned. So that workers who are bound by the outsourcing work system are under the management of another company that only takes care of work relations issues, do not have the ties and rights that can be obtained by workers who have permanent worker status.
An outsourcing company is a company that employs workers in a company that wants to be free from dealings with workers. So the outsourcing company — vendor or contractor — organizes workers who work in a company that is not under the same management. So, workers who work in the outsourcing system — which is often refined with the term outsourcing — do certain jobs or projects not as internal resources of the company concerned, but workers who are under the care of another company.
The purpose of this outsourcing work system is generally (1) to save costs, (2) increase efficiency, (3) reduce internal workload, and (4) avoid unilateral layoffs carried out at high costs or severance pay for workers that is too high.
Moreover, the outsourcing work system can be carried out quickly and ended quickly without having to bear the risk of paying severance pay for workers.
This means that the outsourcing work system is more dominantly detrimental to workers – even to labor organizations, because workers who work in the outsourcing system are difficult to organize to be active and play a role in labor organizations. So, the work system that uses the outsourcing method is one of the causes of the weakening of labor organizations, since the outsourcing system was implemented in Indonesia since the year 2000 ago.
So the grief of the company to implement the outsourcing work system to save operational costs, does not need to provide training facilities. Apart from that, companies using the outsourcing work system can have flexibility, making it possible for the company to adjust the number of workers to the number needed only.
Although the outsourcing work system also has advantages for workers – such as being able to get high wages – security for old age and job continuity cannot be guaranteed, except on the initiative of the workers themselves. Therefore – let alone pension rights – just getting religious holiday allowances is like a fire away from the oven. If there is, it is just a feeling of pity. Not a right that should be obtained.
Banten, May 12, 2025
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