Jurnal Sejarah. Vol. 1(2), 2018: 1 – 24 © Pengurus Pusat Masyarakat Sejarawan Indonesia JOSHUA/DOI: 10.26639/js.vi2.62 Worker’s Paradise: A History of Labor in the Oil Town of the Netherlands-Indie, 1890-1939 Norman Joshua Northwestern University
[email protected] Abstract This article offers a preliminary survey on the working conditions of laborers in the petroleum industry in late-colonial Netherlands East Indies (1890-1939). Through an examination of the material conditions of work in the oil cities of Pangkalan Brandan, Balikpapan, and Palembang, this article argues that working conditions were substantially influenced by the idiosyncratic characteristics of the petroleum industry, consequently arguing against the current established literature on labor history in Indonesia. By emphasizing on these industrial characteristics and paying attention to its fluctuations, this article offers a more nuanced perspective on the issue of colonial labor regimes. Keywords: labor history, petroleum industry, Netherlands Indies Jurnal Sejarah – Vol. 1/2 (2018): 1-24 | 2 “If an employer is as the trunk to a tree, then his employees are that tree’s branches— and what is a tree without its branches?”1 Sir Henri W.A. Deterding, Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell Group, 1900-1936 Introduction In the 1927 edition of their annual reports (verslagen), the Netherlands East Indies Labor Office (Kantoor van Arbeid) stated the following on the labor conditions in the South Sumatran trading city of Palembang: “[The fact that] petroleum companies can