Time is running out for Indonesia’s labor unions

The protests against Indonesia’s labor reform bill started in January 2020. Since then, trade union members have been tear-gassed by police during nationwide demonstrations and riots, threatened with jail time for insulting the Indonesian government, and effectively sidelined by the country’s parliament and President Joko Widodo. And 2021 doesn’t look much better for this usually powerful machine, which at the flip of a switch could paralyze the capital Jakarta by marshaling hundreds of thousands to march through its main thoroughfares.