Here in Indonesia, working for an ASEAN Labor Code
YOGYAKARTA, Java, Indonesia - We are here in the beautiful city of Yogyakarta, the capital of the special region of the same name in the island of Java, near the world famous Borubudor and Prambanan temples. This city is Indonesia's center of excellence in education, culture and the arts. There is where one can buy the best batik in the whole of Asia, you can see the most intricate carvings, and most beautiful paintings. Here, we can watch the Asian versions of the classic ballet, and Indonesia's native dances and puppet shows, then buy Asian poetry books to bring home next week.
But we are not really here for the arts. We are an invited guest speaker and lecturer in a big forum of many hundreds of HR managers in the Indonesia HR Summit, this country's answer to our own PMAP (People Management Association of the Philippines) Annual Conference which will be held in Marriot, Pasay City come second week of October, where I will also be a convention speaker. My topic here is a comparative analysis of the labor laws of ten ASEAN nations, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos PDR and Brunei Darussalam.
The focus of my topic is on how to prepare the HR managers in the entire ASEAN to manage the people dimensions in many corporate transformations across the various countries in ASEAN and other Asian Pacific countries, especially on the matters of corporate mergers, consolidations, and company acquisitions. For instance, whenever a Philippine conglomerate like the San Miguel group, the Unilab group of companies, the SM investments conglomerates of Henry Sy and JG Summit of the Gokongweis would put up a subsidiary in Indonesia, the HR managers in both the Philippines and Indonesia must know how to facilitate talent acquisition and HR management to and from the two countries.
It is the vision of all HR managers in ASEAN to come up with a common Labor Code, where the ten countries can harmonize the different laws on recruitment, employment status, wages, benefits, as well as on employees' health, safety and welfare. The most challenging dimensions in labor laws that need reconciliation are the laws on unions and collective bargaining, unfair labor practices, strikes and other concerted actions. There is also some difficulty in trying to harmonize the systems of labor dispute settlement like arbitration, conciliation and mediation.
In my lecture today, I shall be wearing the Philippines' barong Tagalog to showcase our national costume and I shall be telling them about our country and people, its legal system with focus on labor laws and social legislations. I have been invited upon the suggestion of some Philippine legal luminaries and the HR community. As a former DOLE Undersecretary, and Labor Arbiter and Labor Attache, I have been chosen to speak and I happen to be the only speaker from the Philippines, in a large convention of HR executives and professionals being held here in the Hotel Tentrem, Indonesia.
I have spoken in similar fora in Geneva, Tokyo, Beijing, Honolulu, Kuala Lumpur, Bahrain, Kuwait, Taiwan, Singapore and Bangkok. But it is here that I am given too much importance, which I may not deserve. The local print and broadcast media keep on interviewing me and some Indonesian networks have invited me to appear in their shows, to explain where the ASEAN nations have convergences and divergences in labor legislations. This is a rare opportunity but what matters most of all is that the Indonesians have a lot of respect for us, the Filipinos and our country.
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