Resource Nationalism, Just Transitions, and Evolving Labor Regimes in Indonesia's Nickel Nexus

Activists from the Global South have reframed discussions about climate change from one of green/just transitions to one of climate justice. This reframing foregrounds issues such as carbon debt and “green sacrifice zones” in the Global South, where many critical minerals are located. At the same time, some governments in the Global South—including Indonesia—have sought to harness their mineral wealth to foster economic development through resource nationalist policies. In Indonesia, nickel has been the linchpin of this effort. Yet the nickel boom, while creating tens of thousands of jobs in newly developed industrial estates and billions of dollars in increased exports, has also been fueled by massive amounts of coal-fired power and Chinese FDI. Intensifying jockeying for power between the U.S. and China and Indonesia’s “dirty” nickel problem, also threaten to jeopardize its access to American and European markets for its nickel-based green technologies. The massive expansion of mining and the development of massive new industrial zones in remote areas have not only resulted in dispossession and environmental devastation, but they have also created new forms of labor exploitation. This paper documents the labor regimes that have emerged in the new nickel-based industrial zones, transnational spaces cut off from broader labor protections in Indonesia that rely heavily on imported labor from both China and other parts of Indonesia. It also analyzes how Indonesian union are navigating this new terrain.