Worker voice and health and safety: Trade union representation in the Indonesian construction industry

Trade unions representing workers in developing countries face exclusion from workplaces, yet research on occupational health and safety (OHS) representation has focused predominantly on workplace-based mechanisms. This study examines how Indonesian construction unions represent workers on OHS when conventional pathways for doing so are blocked. We develop a multi-level analytical framework distinguishing micro (individual worker engagement), meso (organisational and industry-level action), and macro (regulatory and policy influence) levels of union activity. Drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted between 2017 and 2024, we analyse two unions with contrasting strategic orientations: a union with roots in Indonesia's anti-Suharto dissident movement that concentrates resources on macro-level institutional participation in tripartite bodies and international labour forums; and another union, born from a specific workplace safety struggle, that prioritises micro-level community organising to build from below. We demonstrate that these divergent approaches reflect strategic choices shaped by organisational identity and historical development. The study contributes a framework for analysing union representation beyond the workplace in developing country contexts and demonstrates that understanding identity-strategy linkages is essential for explaining variation in union approaches to OHS.