Suikerbond

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Suikerbond, or Sugar Union, was a trade union for European workers in the sugar industry in the Dutch East Indies. It started on 14 March 1907 in Surabaya, originally named Bond van Geëmployeerden in de Suikerindustrie in Nederlandsch-Indië. It was one of the two strongest European unions in that area.

In the early 1920s, as many factory workers went on strikes (including many organized by Communist unions), the Suikerbond was seen by some as having been bought off by the sugar companies that raised wages for European workers. In 1921 the union started its own newspaper, De Indische Courant, run by president W. Burger. It appeared in two editions on Java; at first it leaned social-democratic, but after pressure from union members a more conservative editor-in-chief was installed. By 1922 the union had more than 3,800 members and a strike fund of about 500,000 guilders.