City administration fails to serve its domestic workers

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city has been attempting to regulate relations between maids and their employers since the early 1990s, with the goal of providing protection to domestic workers.

However, domestic workers remain largely unprotected by officials because the city administration has failed to enforce existing regulations due to problems at the implementation level.

"There are too many factors that must be taken into account to implement existing regulations, because we want to act fairly both to the maids and their employers," the head of the city's manpower agency, Ali Zubeir, told The Jakarta Post recently.

According to Ali, existing rules focus on how to protect the interests of domestic workers while giving little thought to the rights of their employers.

The first bylaw on the welfare of maids was enacted in 1993. That bylaw, No. 6/1993, includes rules on the minimum benefits for maids, the establishment of recruitment agencies, the responsibility of both maids and their employers and mechanisms for the resolution of disputes.

To support the bylaw, the city administration issued two decrees -- No. 1099/1994 on the welfare of maids and No. 1562/1997 on dispute resolution mechanisms.

Law No. 23/2004 on the eradication of domestic violence also discusses protection for domestic workers.

The welfare of maids is also touched on in Bylaw No. 6/2004 on manpower, particularly Article 11 on the establishment of maid recruitment agencies and the requirements for making agreements between maids and their employers.

Ali, however, said his agency was unable to enforce those regulations because officials required more detailed guidance for their enforcement.

The city, for example, has trouble setting the minimum wage for maids, particularly if they live with their employers because they usually receive more benefits than other workers.

"In deciding on a minimum wage, we should take into account the benefits they receive from their employers, like room and board, three meals a day, and other daily needs that are usually taken care of by their employers," Ali said.

"Another example is that in our society, many families take in children of people from their hometowns so they can go to school here. Those children, however, also do household jobs. Do we consider them maids?" he asked.

Ali said his agency also found it difficult to calculate overtime and to decide on holidays for maids who live with their employers.

To support the existing regulations, he said his agency was preparing a draft gubernatorial decree that would provide more guidance for the fair treatment of both maids and their employers.

The planned decree would, for example, outline the requirements for agreement between maids and their employers, as ruled in Article 51 of Bylaw No. 6/2004 on manpower, Ali said.

Such agreements, according to Article 6 (2), consist of the obligations of both parties -- the amount of pay and other facilities to be given to the maids and the maids' responsibilities to their employers.

In such agreements, the maids, for example, agree to remain in the job for a certain period of time.

"Because of the absence of such agreements, families are often powerless to prevent their maids from quitting even though they rely on them to do their household jobs," Ali said.

He said his agency was seeking input from different parties on the content of the planned gubernatorial decree.