JAKARTA: Muhaimin Iskandar, the Indonesian Minister of Labor, has ordered the creation of a labor federation specifically for workers to be sent to Saudi Arabia. Iskandar said the body, to be named the Federation for the Exportation of Labor to Saudi Arabia, would be tasked through 500 offices with sending workers to the Kingdom in full accordance with the terms of the agreement between the two countries that sets fees and prices for procedures. The announcement, which follows the failure of the system of multiple worker export federations in handling recruitment requests from around the world, including Saudi Arabia, comes only days after the National Recruitment Committee (NRC) at the Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry suspended all dealings with Indonesian workers federations due to their “failure to comply with signed memorandums of understanding governing their relationship with the committee”. The NRC said its dealings with Indonesian federations would be suspended until “a federation sending Indonesian workers to the Kingdom exists that commits to the articles protecting the rights of all parties that have been agreed upon”. 76 percent of all Indonesians working abroad are employed in the Kingdom.
