In Workers and Democracy, John Ingleson has produced the definitive study of Indonesian labor during its most febrile period, from independence in 1949 to the imposition of Soekarno's Guided Democracy (1957–66). Long obscured by decades of developmentalist neoliberal hegemony that began under the US-aligned Suharto regime, the proud struggles and concrete achievements of Indonesia's once-vibrant labor movement are here brought to life through Ingleson's exhaustive use of newspapers, union magazines, and archival documents.
Covering a multitude of institutions and laws, such as the little-known but surprisingly effective labor dispute resolution mechanism of the Panitya Penjelasaian Pertikaian Perburuhan Pusat (aka P4P), Ingleson confidently leads readers through a thicket of details without losing sight of his narrative arc. His book demonstrates his encyclopedic knowledge of Indonesian labor history, as befits a veteran historian who first published In Search of Justice: Workers and Unions in Colonial Java, 1908–1926 in 1986. Ingleson's writing...
