INTRODUCTION

In providing an overview summary of trade union activity in Batam, this chapter analyses the region's political history over the last several years. This approach is employed because there appears to have been a strong surge in national trade union reorganization activity since the end of the New Order in 1998. Explaining the evolution of that history, and how it has manifested in Batam, has determined the framework for this chapter. It is structured as follows: the first section provides a basic outline of historical and social context, both of the trade union sector as well as of some other aspects of Batam; the following section describes the history of the emergence of industrial militancy nationally and in Batam; the third elaborates on the process that has led to a decline of that hostility; and, the conclusion sketches out the implications of this history of the rise and decline of such combat.

HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT

Batam is a unique site of development, consciously created to take advantage of its proximity to Singapore. It is therefore to some extent “artificial” in a sense that its sociology and economy have evolved as an enclave offshoot of Indonesia's economic connectivity with Southeast Asia. This is particularly reflected in its demography, both in terms of originating ethnicity, as well as political demography. It should be noted that in contemporary Indonesia, ethnic and political demography overlap with each other as most political parties represented in the national parliament have specific geographic areas where their support is strongest.

Before delving deep into the trade union situation in Batam, it is pertinent to briefly discuss its demography. The central and salient feature here is the major immigrant population, which has come into being over an approximate fifteen-year period. The original indigenous population of Batam Malays now exists alongside Javanese, Batak, Minangkabau and other Malay Sumatran immigrants, which gives the Batam population and society the character of a frontier, or new society. By 2010, across the whole province of Riau, “Malays”—presumably local Malays—formed only 30 per cent of the population.