Workers and Intellectuals: NGOs, Trade Unions and the Indonesian Labour Movement

In the 1990s, Indonesia’s independent labor movement re-emerged after decades of repression. The revival was led by students and NGO activists, who organized industrial workers and spoke on their behalf. Workers and Intellectuals explores how these middle-class activists struggled to define their place in a labor movement shaped by a history of fierce debate about the role of nonworker intellectuals. Drawing on extensive interviews, Michele Ford documents the contribution made by NGOs and student groups to the resurgence of labor activism, explaining how activists and workers perceived their roles and how the situation evolved in the decade after Suharto’s authoritarian regime crumbled in 1998. This fine-grained study of labor organization in a developing country will appeal to scholars of labor history, politics, and sociology, as well as Indonesia specialists.