Minimum wages to be set for domestic helpers

Minimum wages to be set for domestic helpers

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration plans to issue a ruling
regarding minimum wages for domestic helpers to improve their
living standards.

H. Soenarjudardji, the municipal administration's secretary
for welfare affairs, said during a one-day seminar on increasing
protection and wages for domestic helpers on Tuesday that the
levels of wages set will not be a burden for employers.

Under the ruling the amount of wages for domestic helpers will
be based on the economic conditions of the families for whom they
work, Soenarjudardji said.

The ruling is expected to assure that families who employ
domestic helpers make an effort to better and protect the welfare
of the servants.

"People still consider domestic helpers their helpers in any
kind of situation at the house and not as the workers they are
supposed to be. That's why we still can find domestic helpers
being paid only Rp 20,000 (US$9.09) a month by their employers,"
he said.

The Regional Minimum Wage for workers which took effect last
month for the Jakarta area is Rp 4,600 per day.

A census conducted in 1994 set Jakarta's population at 8.99
million. It also reported that there were 1.5 million women
working as domestic helpers.

Ika Siagian, a speaker at the seminar, noted in the
presentation of her paper that in many cases domestic helpers act
not only as housekeepers who have to cook, do the laundry and
other jobs, but also as "mothers" to their employers' children.

"The situation of domestic helpers in Jakarta generally
remains poor, with many of them still required to be on call 24
hours a day. Imagine, they are still ordered to work when they
should be sleeping," Soenarjudardji said.

He pointed out that the city administration was striving to
improve the quality of maid servants by providing a training
program for them. He explained that the training program is
designed to help put domestic helpers in a stronger bargaining
position and to reduce the amount of abuse they face currently.
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