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)