2 April, 2024The IndustriALL Indonesia council women’s committee successfully negotiated five workplace-level safe houses at Evoluzione Tyre Indonesia, Akzo Nobel Car Refinishes Indonesia, Sinar Tambang Artha Lestari, Indocement Cirebon Plant, and Semen Padang.
Indonesian minister of women empowerment and child protection, Gusti Ayu Bintang Darmawati, inaugurated the safe house at PT Evoluzione Tyre (Pirelli group) in West Java, on 19 March 2024.
The company is unionized by IndustriALL Indonesian affiliate Chemical, Energy and Mines Workers Union (CEMWU). Both parties signed a zero-tolerance policy on violence and harassment in 2021 as a commitment to eliminate violence and harassment in the world of work.
In the past three years, IndustriALL Indonesia council women committee relentlessly lobbied the ministry to implement the safe house policy in industrial zones and at workplace level.
Ira Laila, chairperson of IndustriALL Indonesia council women’s committee, thanked the company management, the ministry, the local authority for their support and federation leaders for realizing the safe houses.
The safe house will ensure a secure environment for women workers to voice their issues relating to violence and harassment. It also provides training on violence and harassment at the factory level.
“We hope that the safe house will create a safe and peaceful environment, so that the company continues to grow and workers benefit from it. This is only the first step. The women’s committee will push for the setting up of more safe houses across Indonesia.”
added Ira Laila.
IndustriALL director of gender and non-manual workers, Armelle Seby, said:
“The work of IndustriALL's women's committee in Indonesia is exemplary. After the negotiation of the zero-tolerance policy, which was adopted more than 82 factories, the creation of this space for women to denounce cases of violence and build capacity is a further step forward in the fight against violence against women, and in the application of C190, even if it has not yet been ratified by Indonesia. These actions by the unions will change the lives of thousands of women workers.”