Enhancing Legal Protections for Workers in Industrial Accidents: Towards Better Occupational Safety in Indonesia

Abstract

Industrial workplace accidents continue to reveal significant weaknesses in Indonesia’s occupational safety and labor protection framework, particularly regarding enforcement mechanisms, employer accountability, and access to workers’ compensation. Existing studies on Indonesian labor law have primarily focused on national regulatory structures, while limited attention has been given to the role of regional legal governance in strengthening occupational safety enforcement. This study aims to critically evaluate the effectiveness of Indonesia’s occupational safety and health (OSH) regulations and to examine the potential role of regional labor regulations in improving worker protection at the local level. The research employs a normative-juridical and comparative legal approach through the analysis of statutory regulations, doctrinal legal materials, and international labor standards, particularly International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 155 and Convention No. 187. The findings demonstrate that Indonesia’s labor protection regime remains hindered by fragmented regulatory implementation, weak institutional supervision, limited labor inspection capacity, and inconsistencies in compensation procedures affecting vulnerable and contractual workers. The study further finds that the absence of responsive regional labor regulations contributes to enforcement gaps, particularly in industrial areas with limited administrative oversight. By linking occupational safety governance with decentralization and regional regulatory reform, this article offers a doctrinal contribution to labor law scholarship and proposes a more integrated legal framework for strengthening occupational safety protections in Indonesia. The study is limited to normative and regulatory analysis and does not include empirical field investigation.