Reforming Legal Safeguards for Unpaid Internships in Indonesia’s Creative Industry

Tri Sulistiyono; Yos Johan Utama; Nabitatus Sa’adah; Moh. Imam Gusthomi; Sabina Syaharani Nurseha

doi:10.15294/jllr.v7i1.34473

Authors

Tri Sulistiyono Faculty of Law, Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, Indonesia and Faculty of Law, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Semarang, Indonesia Author https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0804-3027
Yos Johan Utama Faculty of Law, Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, Indonesia Author https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2227-4036
Nabitatus Sa’adah Faculty of Law, Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, Indonesia Author https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4668-6242
Moh. Imam Gusthomi Faculty of Law, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Semarang, Indonesia Author
Sabina Syaharani Nurseha Faculty of Law, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Semarang, Indonesia Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15294/jllr.v7i1.34473

Keywords:

Internship Legal Protection, Creative Industry Labor Law, Regulatory Reform, Indonesian Manpower Law, SDGs

Abstract

This article examines the imperative for legal reform of the unpaid internship regulation in Indonesia’s creative industry through a normative-juridical methodology grounded in three complementary legal theories: Legal Protection Theory (Philipus M. Hadjon), Justice Theory (John Rawls), and Legal Effectiveness Theory (Soerjono Soekanto). The study identifies a structural conflict of norms between the constitutional guarantee of the right to work under Article 28D (2) of the 1945 Constitution and the minimalistic, unenforceable provisions of Minister of Manpower Regulation No. 6 of 2020 on Domestic Internships. Doctrinal analysis reveals that the existing regulatory architecture fails to provide the preventive and repressive legal protection required by Hadjon’s framework, fails to satisfy the demands of Rawlsian distributive justice, and fails across all five determinant factors of Soekanto’s legal effectiveness theory. These normative deficiencies are further situated within a global comparative framework encompassing legal regimes in the European Union, France, Australia, Japan, and Malaysia, with particular attention to the conditions under which foreign regulatory models may be transplanted into Indonesia’s civil law system. The article concludes with proposed draft amendments to Permenaker No. 6/2020, incorporating a mandatory minimum stipend tied to the Municipal Minimum Wage, capped working hours for interns, compulsory social security enrollment, a graduated administrative and criminal sanctions regime for violations, and the establishment of an independent internship oversight authority modeled on Australia’s Fair Work Ombudsman.

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