Monetary turmoil deals heavy blow to laborers

JAKARTA (JP): The monetary crisis has put the brakes on many city projects, leaving an untold number of construction workers jobless, homeless and starving.

Hundreds of unskilled workers, mostly bricklayers and workmen, are forced to live under the flyovers -- such as the ones in Grogol, West Jakarta, and Cawang in East Jakarta -- where they wait for work.

Eighteen-year-old Wagiman, one of the jobless, has been sitting under the Grogol flyover for the last three months in the hope of finding a job. But he has received only a few days of work.

Wagiman, from a small village in Jepara regency, Central Java, admitted that he sometimes has to control his hunger and eat just once a day because he has no money to buy food.

"I eat when I feel pain in my stomach. I'm forced to owe money to a vendor for the rice I eat every day," he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

He said his total debt to the vendor was Rp 5,000 (US$1) for the nasi bungkus (rice and meat or vegetables which are wrapped in a piece of paper).

The job shortage has left him penniless and he has been unable to visit his wife, who lives in his hometown.

Wagiman, who used to go home once or twice a month, needs at least Rp 15,000 for a one-way bus ticket to see his wife, Sarti, whom he married nine months ago.

Before the monetary crisis he claimed he could earn between Rp 25,000 and Rp 30,000 a day.

But now the second-grade dropout from Tsanawiyah (an Islamic junior high school) rarely has enough to live.

More than 500 construction workers live under the Grogol flyover, where they sleep, eat, and do other daily activities such as washing and drying their clothes underneath the flyover alongside the Ciputra Mal and Hotel complex.

The workers stand to attention whenever a foreman arrives with a pick-up and offers them a job. But many are turned back because only a few men are needed for each job.

Busairi, a leader of the workers, decides how many workers can join the foreman. And when the men return to their temporary home under the flyover, they are asked to hand over part of their wages to their friends.

Yesterday, a group of eight men were sitting under the Cawang flyover in East Jakarta, and talking in Sundanese while six hoes lay unused at their feet.

There are some people who are not afraid of dying but they are afraid of not having things such as good clothes, cars, jewelry and power, one of them, said.

"But we're here because we're still afraid of dying. We're afraid if our children can't eat or live properly," Tarman said.

Forty-year-old Tarman said he has not had any job offers over the last two months and he has often starved.

Deciding to leave your hometown means daring to endure tapa (self-denial as a measure of discipline), he said convincingly.

"Sometimes we can only afford to eat once in two or three days but that doesn't matter, we're used to," he said.

If a good offer comes along, workers can get at least Rp 150,000 a month, he said.

Encun, 54, who has four children, said that he did not want his children to live like him.

He recalled a bitter experience about two weeks ago when a supervisor invited him and three of his friends to work for him in Bekasi. They were told to paint an almost-completed building.

"It was a two-story market, I don't remember the name," he said. "The supervisor was so kind to us, but after we finished painting, he ran away without giving us any money."

The jobless workers -- among an estimated 2.8 million construction workers in the city -- sleep wherever they can.

One of them said: "As long as there is a roof, we can sleep there."

Most of the workers, aged between 20 and 60, sit and talk under the flyover when they do not have a job to go to.

But 69-year-old Saliban has found his own way to endure the hardships of the last three months.

He has drifted from one office garbage site to another along Jl. Panjaitan in East Jakarta collecting used cardboard.

Occasionally he collects at least 10 pieces a day and sells them for Rp 200 per kilogram.

"A collector in Prumpung always takes whatever I have," he said proudly, adding that even if he had only collected one piece of cardboard it would be bought.

"He must sympathize with me," he said, laughing and exposing a toothless grin.

Saliban, a grandfather of seven, said that he no longer misses his family.

"My children all live far away from me. Two of them migrated to Sumatra while the other three are married and live in Java."

With the money he earns selling cardboard, he can buy food and cigarettes. However he also puts a little bit aside for emergency needs.

Some of his friends often borrow money from him. He has told them that if they become sick they must go directly to a doctor or just buy medicine.

The monetary crisis has suspended or halted work on many projects, such as toll roads and buildings constructions, forcing many workers off the payroll and onto the streets.

As for the workers, no one can predict when they will have jobs to go to again because no one knows precisely when the crisis will end. (jun/04)