More than 10,000 people in Jakarta rallied against government plans to revise a 2003 labor law that businesses say gave workers so many benefits and so much freedom to organize and strike it dealt a blow to Indonesia's economic competitiveness and attractiveness to investors.

The government and current parliament, elected in 2004, want to amend the law to give employers more flexibility, curb strikes and ease back on severance payments for sacked workers, currently among the world's most generous.

- Workers want the law untouched.

"We want to show the leaders that we don't want to succumb to the ways of the foreign investors," a female speaker told a rally in front of the presidential palace.

"We are not the reason for the bad investment climate but why are we being the sacrificial lamb?" rally leader Suryadi told Reuters, arguing corruption and bureaucracy were the major obstacles to investment in Indonesia, not workers' rights.

Similar protests were held in 12 other cities in the world's fourth most populous country, local media reported.

Opposition legislators met labor representatives and promised to knock down the government's amendments if they reach the parliament.
More than 10,000 people in Jakarta rallied against government plans to revise a 2003 labor law that businesses say gave workers so many benefits and so much freedom to organize and strike it dealt a blow to Indonesia's economic competitiveness and attractiveness to investors.

The government and current parliament, elected in 2004, want to amend the law to give employers more flexibility, curb strikes and ease back on severance payments for sacked workers, currently among the world's most generous.

Workers want the law untouched.

"We want to show the leaders that we don't want to succumb to the ways of the foreign investors," a female speaker told a rally in front of the presidential palace.

"We are not the reason for the bad investment climate but why are we being the sacrificial lamb?" rally leader Suryadi told Reuters, arguing corruption and bureaucracy were the major obstacles to investment in Indonesia, not workers' rights.

Similar protests were held in 12 other cities in the world's fourth most populous country, local media reported.

Opposition legislators met labor representatives and promised to knock down the government's amendments if they reach the parliament.
More than 10,000 people in Jakarta rallied against government plans to revise a 2003 labor law that businesses say gave workers so many benefits and so much freedom to organize and strike it dealt a blow to Indonesia's economic competitiveness and attractiveness to investors.

The government and current parliament, elected in 2004, want to amend the law to give employers more flexibility, curb strikes and ease back on severance payments for sacked workers, currently among the world's most generous.

Workers want the law untouched.

"We want to show the leaders that we don't want to succumb to the ways of the foreign investors," a female speaker told a rally in front of the presidential palace.

"We are not the reason for the bad investment climate but why are we being the sacrificial lamb?" rally leader Suryadi told Reuters, arguing corruption and bureaucracy were the major obstacles to investment in Indonesia, not workers' rights.

Similar protests were held in 12 other cities in the world's fourth most populous country, local media reported.

Opposition legislators met labor representatives and promised to knock down the government's amendments if they reach the parliament.

PHILIPPINES PROTEST

The 2003 law was a product of the country's first democratic parliament after the 1998 fall of autocratic President Suharto, who kept unions on a tight leash.

In the Philippines, Labor Day demonstrations passed off peacefully in the capital as thousands of protesters bowed to a heavy security presence, confounding fears of violence from anti-government groups.

A phalanx of police bearing batons and shields pushed back thousands of protestors trying to get to the thoroughfare in Manila leading to the Malacanang presidential complex in sweltering summer heat.

The protestors started to disperse voluntarily at 6 p.m. (1000 GMT), the deadline for rallies to cease.

The crowds at the palace and elsewhere in Manila, which media estimated at around 10,000, waved red flags and banners calling for higher wages, lower fuel prices and the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Arroyo has accused left-wing foes and rebel soldiers of colluding to oust her in February and has taken strong measures to contain the nearly nonstop protests against her administration.

Inside the palace, fortified with coils of barbed wired and shipping containers, Arroyo hosted a labor reception at which she unveiled a 40 billion peso ($773 million) package of non-wage benefits for workers.

CAMBODIAN GARMENT WORKERS
Trade union leaders said it was not enough to alleviate the burden of higher energy bills.

Poor opportunities at home have forced around 10 percent of the Philippine's 85 million population to seek work abroad. Riot police broke up a peaceful Labor Day march in the Cambodian capital, drawing criticism from rights activists and the opposition who reject the official line that the dispersal was to prevent traffic jams.

Police armed with AK-47 rifles and electric batons chased protesters out of public parks in the center of Phnom Penh and used fire trucks to block garment workers from gathering outside the National Assembly.

The protest was the first since opposition leader Sam Rainsy's return from a year of self-imposed exile after he lost his parliamentary immunity. He spoke at Monday's protest.

Thousands of Bangladeshi industrial workers took to the streets on Monday to demand higher wages and better working conditions in May Day rallies.

Wearing red headbands and carrying banners and placards they marched to the beat of drums and bag-pipers.

"We are not working today in memory of those brethren killed by authorities in Chicago, USA in 1886, as they campaigned for an eight-hour working day," Moinuddin Khan Badal, a workers' leader told Reuters.