Jakarta:   On Saturday, tens of thousands of workers demonstrated in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, in opposition to a presidential decree that opponents claim would weaken labour rights and environmental safeguards.

In Southeast Asia's largest economy, President Joko Widodo replaced a contentious jobs law with an emergency decree last month, a move that some legal experts claim violated a court order.

The 2020 Jobs Creation Law was declared invalid by the Constitutional Court because there had not been enough public input before the law's passage. It mandated that the renewed procedure be finished by the end of November.

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38-year-old protester Damar Panca Mulia referred to the decree as a government ruse intended to ensure that the job law would be implemented.

"This regulation weakens worker welfare, scales back labour protections, and harms agrarian issues, the environment, and women's protection," he claimed. The improvement of workers' welfare should go hand in hand with job creation, but this decree goes against that. That is why we are against it.

Some protesters carried signs that read, "Reject job creation emergency decree because there is no emergency situation," while others carried banners that read, "Say no to outsourcing."

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According to Joko Heriono, 59, the regulation left workers uncertain because they could be fired without cause and would receive less in severance pay.

Outsourcing and the decree's minimum wage regulation, according to Labor Party Chairman Said Iqbal, are two issues to be concerned about.

Said told reporters, "We don't want the state to only act as a tool for unethical businesspeople to undermine the welfare of workers.

Foreign investors had praised the Jobs Creation Law for reducing red tape and revising more than 70 other laws.

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According to the deputy speaker of the legislature this week, the decree's legal standing will be evaluated during the current session. A group of Indonesians requested a judicial review of the rule from the Constitutional Court last week.