In the aftermath of the massacre of Chinese Miners in the CAR in the past week, this new article on a race riot between foreign Chinese and native workers in Indonesia shows something striking
In many of Chinese foreign industrial investments, from Africa to Indonesia, Chinese workers are often brought in to work on these projects, much to the chagrin of native workers
Chinese workers receive marginally better treatment from their employers, although they still overall suffer from the same issues that assail native workers
As a result, this causes conflict between the native and the foreign workers, leading to, well, massacres and race riots
I can’t help but feel this is almost by design, that the companies in charge are fully aware of the conflict between workers this brings, and finds it easier to exploit both sections as a result
A recent report by China Labor Watch, which has conducted conversations with Chinese workers at PT GNI, reveals that SPN’s(Indonesian Labour Union) demands were not circulated among the Chinese at all due to Chinese workers’ inability to access Indonesian writing. This discrepancy allowed GNI’s management to “creat[e] an image of Chinese ‘us’ vs. Indonesian ‘them.’” The report states that under companies such as Jiangsu Delong, Chinese workers in Indonesia also suffer from wage arrears, physical abuses and surveillance, and unreported deaths are commonplace
Definitely seems like it
Luckily, further down in the article, the head of SPN notes the need to recruit Chinese workers into Trade Union struggles, which would be a good development for labour rights in Indonesia
