Conflict is a normal part of any industrial relations system. It is something that governments, trade unions, employers and the organizations have sought to better manage across countries for many years, with varying degrees of success. While there are many immediate causes for frequent and often unresolved conflicts in labour relations, the underlying root cause often is the inadequacies of bipartite social dialogue and collective bargaining mechanisms. In the absence of effective workplace grievance handling processes, individual and collective grievances and labour disputes end up in the time consuming and costly judicial processes for resolution. Dispute resolution via judiciary can at best promote compliance with law, it cannot promote culture of dialogue and cooperation that is needed for mutually acceptable and more stable solutions to labour relations problems.

ILO estimates indicate that COVID-19 could wipe out approximately 6.7 per cent of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020 – equivalent to 195 million full-time workers. Governments around the world are taking swift action to support business to survive the pandemic and keep the recession as short and shallow as possible, while preserving as many jobs as possible. In times of crisis, where the challenges are systemic and the response of each firm impacts the others, the economic and social environment is particularly important. Governments, together with employers’ and workers’ organizations, should quickly assess the risks and implement measures to sustain enterprises through the crisis and help them to recover; and to provide social protections to workers in need. Even when governments act quickly, many enterprises still face the immediate risk of going out of business and millions of workers already have lost their jobs as companies reduce or freeze their operations and orders evaporate. The uncertainty surrounding the duration of the pandemic and the decline in economic activity is likely to force many more firms to restructure to try to save their operations and this is a challenging time for industrial relation situation.

Speakers

Opening remarks
Dra. Indah Anggoro Putri, Mbus, Director General of Industrial Relations Development and Labour Social Security, Ministry of Manpower and Arun Kumar, ILO Specialist for Collective Bargaining and Social Dialogue

Speaker

C. Heru Widianto, S.E., M.M., Director of Institutional and Industrial Relations Dispute Prevention, Ministry of Manpower

Moderator
Daryl Adam, Presenter of SmartFM Radio