The ILO latest study found that the union federations involved the study, with a membership base that spans multiple regions, reported that it has become increasingly difficult to manage information related to trade union membership and grievance, and that their current data is incomplete, not up-to-date, and does not provide useful insights or support for advocacy and reform.

The study was conducted by the ILO through its Strengthening Industrial Relations in Indonesia project supported by the Bureau for Workers 'Activities (ACTRAV) and in collaboration with the Labor Solutions, a tech and advisory social enterprise. Although the main focus of the study was two main federations and their confederations in garment sector, the study also involved in a lesser extent five other union confederations and three independent union federations in the palm oil and fishery sectors.

Titled “Systems Analysis for Grievance Documentation and Case Management System for Improving Trade Union Operations and Outreach Capabilities Within the Garments, Palm Oil and Fisheries Sectors”, the study aimed to provide the confederations, federations, and local trade unions with a set of recommendations describing potential features of a new process for grievance management, incorporating technological tools to help overcome some of the discovered barriers and challenges.

Using a variety of methods combining survey, interview and workshop, the study also revealed that the existing systems created by each federation are sufficient to support case management and resolution but do not adequately support the broader functions of the federation aside from direct services to workers with grievance and do not support their visions for growth and development in the future.

In addition, the study showed that the involvement of trade unions in grievance mechanisms were critical and that the trade unions provided a necessary, valuable service to their members. The study also found that the federations participated in the study had utilized technology and/or online tools to connect with their members and for grievance case intake.

The two main garment federations and their confederations— the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Union (KSPI) and its National Trade Union (SPN) and the Confederation of All Indonesian Trade Union (KSBSI) and its Federation for Garment, Textile and Leather Industries (Garteks)—
admitted that the biggest challenge was to collect and organize all case information from different communication channels so that grievance management processes could be followed, resources allocated and data analyzed at both sectoral and national levels for more effective advocacy, membership driven and policy reform.

“The trade union federations in Indonesia generally expressed a desire for a centralized case management system and a portal for data analysis and reporting portal to help them track and supervise the submitted grievances as well as collect comparable data on each case with aggregated data for improvement and policy advocacy,” explained the study.

Nurus S. Mufidah, ILO Project Coordinator for Strengthening Industrial Relations Project, said the key findings of the study aimed to provide the confederations and their federations with a set of recommendations describing potential features of a new process for grievance management and incorporating technological tools to overcome barriers and challenges. “The ILO hopes that the study can support trade union confederations, federations and factory-level trade unions to serve their members better and to grow as strong and effective voices for workers in its industries, and at the national level.”

The study concluded with a set of recommendations as follows:

• Digitization is found as a good for problems associated with scaling and data collection and analysis. Digital tools can automate processes that are resource-intensive and make complex data more user friendly and easy to understand.
• Trust-based connections and communications with workers developed by federations are identified as the strength of the federations that should be maintained using the existing communication channels.
• Development of a dashboard-based case management system for each federation that allows federation officials at any level to input new cases from any available channels such as social media, web-based form and whats up, review the status of open cases and support new case investigation and resolution.
• Development of case categorization through tagging and custom or individualized categories so that data can be easily analysed and lessons learnt incorporated into future case management.
• Buy-in and support from each level of the federations are critical. The federations should be aware of concerns from factory-level trade union representatives and ensure that they are convinced of the value of the new features and are able to navigate them to support their work.

“The results of the study have emphasized the importance of digitizing the grievance tools and case management system. The ILO will continue supporting confederations, federations and trade unions to explore the possibility of digitizing their grievance tools and case management as well as other selected functions related to membership databases and information sharing on key legal issues related to worker safety and rights,” concluded Nurus, adding that as a follow-up of the study, an application tool for grievance mechanism would be developed and piloted for garment sector.

Funded by the Government of Canada, the Strengthening Industrial Relations in Indonesia project builds the capacity of garment sector workers and their representatives to effectively organize and represent all workers in Indonesia’s garment sector and participate more actively and inclusively in key national policy advocacy.