Reaching dreams on minimum wages
Reaching dreams on minimum wages
After a few years of hard work in a big city, one would expect
to own smarter clothes, have some savings and win respect for
having a stable job. This year the government raised minimum
wages by 10 percent, to be effective from April. The following
story, and those on pages 9 and 13, by The Jakarta Post reporters
Devi M. Asmarani, IGGP Bayu Ismoyo, Imanuddin, Kosasih Deradjat,
Riyadi, and Primastuti Handayani look at how people struggle on
meager wages.
JAKARTA (JP): The Idul Fitri celebration should have been a
time of joy for all Moslems. But for 21-year-old Nurlela, the
sacred occasion was a period of wounded pride as she failed to
take home gifts and cash.
"I am going home because I am sick," she said in Jatiwangi
village, Majalengka, in West Java, 250 kilometers east of here,
during the Idul Fitri holiday.
Nurlela works at a leather goods factory in Tangerang, West
Java. She was one of millions working in Greater Jakarta who
joined the Idul Fitri exodus two weeks ago.
"Instead of buying new dresses for my mother, sister and
brother -- I, the eldest daughter of a widow, went home
penniless." She felt unrespectable, especially when most people
celebrated with new clothes and city-bought cakes.
"I was really ashamed to go home ... but I couldn't afford to
stay on my own as I was sick," she said.
Like many other workers, Nurlela is her family's backbone.
After graduating from junior high school, her mother told her to
go and find a job.
Having worked for three years, Nurlela shares an unfurnished
room with a colleague near the factory, for which she pays Rp
50,000 (US$21) a month.
Her wage is Rp 156,000 per month, the minimum level for
workers in Tangerang.
Besides spending Rp 25,000 on rent, she allocates Rp 90,000
for three meals a day, Rp 15,000 for cosmetics and toiletries and
Rp 10,000 for other necessities; the remaining Rp 16,000 she
saves.
Nurlela sticks strictly to this budget to help provide for her
family. This means her meals rarely cost more than Rp 1,000; a
bowl of rice plus an egg with a little vegetable soup is typical.
"If I spend more than Rp 2,000 on breakfast and lunch, I eat
only a pack of instant noodles or meatballs for dinner," she
said.
Nurlela thinks her frequent colds and fevers could be caused
by her tight budget and because she sleeps on a mattress on the
floor. The company doctor said she had bronchitis and regular
fevers. However she vows to fight her illness and return to work.
Contrast
The contrast between Nurlela's situation and that of her boss
goes without saying.
Tanri Abeng, one of the country's highest-paid executives,
once said Indonesian executives are among the highest paid in the
region, with hiring rates for general managers often exceeding
$30,000 a month.
Workers would not dream of earning a fraction of that figure.
It is said the frequent strikes, often over demands for wages
to be at least the minimum level (still well under Rp 200,000 a
month), are a despairing cry for economic help rather than the
work of third parties.
Ministry of Manpower figures show labor strikes increased by
26 percent, to 901 stoppages, last year.
According to the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, more than
800 labor cases were reported last year in Greater Jakarta. Most
were related to wage hike delays.
Arist Merdeka Sirait of the Jakarta-based Social Information
and Legal Aid Center said more strikes did not mean higher
awareness among workers of their rights -- only greater
"villagers' solidarity."
"(It's) the kind of thing people would do because others do
the same," he said.
Participating in such labor unrest is always risky for
workers.
Neni, a 26-year-old employee at a shoe factory in Serang, West
Java, lost her job after joining a strike last year.
"I never thought I would be fired," she said.
Working conditions were so bad, she said, she and her friends
went on strike to demand higher pay, and increased transportation
and medical allowances.
Of her monthly wage of Rp 150,000, Neni had to spend more than
a third on transportation alone.
As the eldest daughter in the family, she had to help her
mother support her three siblings with the remaining Rp 98,000.
"I spend about Rp 40,000 on my own expenses and save the
rest," said Neni, a junior high school graduate from Tangerang.
Neni said her employer sometimes forced workers to work
overtime to meet order deadlines.
"Of course we're happy to get the extra pay. But sometimes we
can't stand working overtime three nights in a row."
Neni and other female workers might well not have realized
they have legal protection. A 1989 ministerial decree states
companies employing female workers at night should provide extra
food and transportation.
Neni moved to another shoe factory, also in Serang. But
conditions there are not much better.
The one physician who cares for the 2,500 workers comes only
twice a week.
There are no specific rulings on medical services at factories
but companies are required by law to provide a government-
sponsored social security program, called Jamsostek.
The absence of the program at one paper plant in Bekasi, West
Java, cost a 27-year-old his job.
Disabled
When Yanto, a widower, was involved in a traffic accident on
the way to work, he was hospitalized for a week and the company
did not cover his expenses. Luckily, his supervisor did.
But when he recovered the management dismissed him as he had
been disabled in the incident. They said they would not pay any
of the expenses as Yanto was drunk at the time of the accident.
Yanto could not prove otherwise no matter how much he insisted
this was not true.
While not all workers have been so unfortunate many others
have fared much worse.
Todung Mulya Lubis, a corporate lawyer and human rights
advocate, said workers' grievances in Indonesia are more about
wages and allowances than demands for rights such as being
allowed to set up trade unions.
Increasing minimum wages would not resolve the problem, he
said; workers would still consider any hikes insufficient.
Managements claiming financial difficulties can obtain permits
from the Ministry of Manpower to delay implementing pay rises for
12 months.
Of the hundreds of companies which asked last year, 215 were
granted permits.
Management can ask for the dispensation up to three months
after the announcement of the new minimum wages, which are
granted following a government assessment of the company.
Minister of Industry and Trade Tunky Ariwibowo supported
companies claiming problems; minimum wages increase much faster
than labor productivity, he argued.
Tunky said that between 1985 and 1995 wages increased by 170
percent while productivity only climbed 75 percent.
Wilhelmus Bhoka, chairman of the government-sanctioned
Federation of the All Indonesia Workers Union, disagreed, arguing
that in the past 20 years productivity had risen 400 percent
while minimum wages had risen by only US$2.
Bhoka said workers wages here were far below those in Thailand
($6.9 a day) and the Philippines ($6.6).
One frequently cited scapegoat for low wages is the so-called
invisible and inevitable costs.
Lawyer Lubis said workers would receive better wages only when
the country has a clean government, which would do away with such
costs.
When this happens, Nurlela might then win back her pride, and
recover from her coughs and fever. (team)