Constitutionalization of Minimum Wage as the Right of Laborers/Workers
Abstract
Setting a minimum wage is part of the annual government agenda and the agenda of labor unions, where aspiration is expressed in either political action or legal action, while this condition has sparked a polemic. Referring to rapid changes in the regulation regarding minimum wage, this research aims to investigate the grounds for the changes in the minimum wage and to discover arguments over the urgency to declare minimum wage as the labor right/worker right to be governed in the Constitution of Indonesia. This research employed normative-juridical methods and statutory and conceptual approaches. The research discovers that the legal norms regarding minimum wage have changed rapidly and they are accessible for modification, following political interests for governments, entrepreneurs, and workers/laborers, where workers/laborers are considered the most vulnerable, compared to governments and entrepreneurs who have their dominant power in a political configuration to influence the formulation of laws. To minimize the dominant political interest, the minimum wage must be declared as part of the human rights of laborers/workers in the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia. This urgency principally refers to the following elements: (a) the constitution as a primary norm deciding the norm of laws under the constitution; (b) the constitution with its robust and sustainable standing norm with its long validity compared to the lower laws that are prone to changes; (c) constitution with the values of Pancasila as the leading guidance in national law; (d) the formation and/or the changes of the constitution through a political process that involves the members of parliament and extra-parliament; (e) the constitution as a reflection of gentlemen agreement for the whole elements of the state; (f)… the condition where all the states are experiencing globalization turbulence where the supremacy of capitalism in a mutualistic symbiosis between states is inevitable.
Copyright (c) 2023 H. Karna Wijaya, Budi Santoso, Sihabudin Sihabudin, Setyo Widagdo
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