RI's migrant workers pay heavy price for gains

RI's migrant workers pay heavy price for gains

By Erafzon Saptiyulda AS

JAKARTA (Antara): It is unfortunate little attention is paid to opportunities for the export of Indonesian migrant workers as a way to solve the growing unemployment problem.

There are 12 million jobless according to FSPSI, the only government-recognized labor association.

Significant potential for labor export as a foreign exchange earner is often overshadowed by disturbing media reports on the plight of Indonesian migrant workers, especially women.

This has led to the assumption that working abroad means toil and trouble. Worker advocates counter that many traumatic experiences occur when the workers -- many of whom have poor educations and are from provincial backgrounds -- arrive back on home soil.

As the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar against the rupiah is soaring, many of the one million Indonesian workers abroad are experiencing an upturn in their fortunes.

Incredible as it may sound, a migrant worker employed in Taiwan for three years can send Rp 100 million to his family in the village.

Let's say this migrant worker received a monthly wage of 15,000 enti, the Taiwanese currency. Assuming a present exchange rate of the U.S. dollar against the rupiah is Rp 10,000, the amount would be equivalent to Rp 4 million.

Before the monetary crisis occurred and the rupiah slumped in value, it was worth about Rp 1.5 million.

In three years, the worker could collect a gross total of Rp 144 million. With this much money at his disposal, it is not too difficult for him to send back home Rp 100 million.

"Migrant workers employed in Taiwan can get even more because there is overtime pay. Also, while in Taiwan they get free accommodation and two meals a day," said Anung Sudarto, head of the Taiwan division of the Indonesian Association of Labor Exporting Companies (Apjati).

Indonesian migrant workers in Singapore are also counting the increase in their income. Some of them can send back home Rp 50 million after working there two years.

Same is true for an Indonesian female migrant worker employed in Saudi Arabia and earning some 700 rial a month.

And a migrant worker in Hong Kong receives the equivalent of Rp 3 million a month.

These salaries may seem amazing today to those back home, with layoffs striking many and scrimping and saving becoming a daily activity.

Unfortunately, banks have been slow to support the development of the sector despite its huge potential to generate foreign exchange.

And, inevitably, the soaring rate of the U.S. dollar against the rupiah has also increased the cost for recruitment and placement of migrant workers.

Sudarto said placing a worker in Taiwan cost Rp 18 million, up from Rp 6 million to Rp 8 million previously.

"Labor-exporting companies and Indonesian migrant workers do not have starting funds of this size. They need aid from banks," he said.

This year, Taiwan will require 38,000 foreign workers from the three countries of Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Relevant government agencies must seize this opportunity, especially now the unemployment rate at home is heading up, he said.

Apjati argued, however, that Indonesian migrant workers have not enjoyed proper and full protection, both at home and abroad.

The association's secretary-general, Anton Sihombing, said traumatic experiences often beset returning workers.

"We don't have to view how these workers are treated overseas as we can just see how they are subject to glaring extortion by certain elements and brokers right after they set foot at an airport at home."

Individuals at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, for example, reportedly often subject returning workers to extortionary practices. This is also said to occur at the accommodation hostel provided by transportation company Damri in Cakung, East Jakarta, which houses returnees before they are transported to their home villages.

"This inhumane treatment can occur openly several times a day and nobody cares," Sihombing said.

It is common practice, he continued, to force returning the workers to travel to the accommodation site in a Damri. From here, he said, they would be transported to their home villages in smaller vehicles, but at exorbitant prices.

"To get to their home villages, they will have to pay Rp 300,000 - Rp 500,000," he said.

Another shady practice, he added, was that workers were transported in a Damri bus separately from their baggage, which further unsettled the women.

Apjati sent a letter to the management of Soekarno-Hatta Airport asking that the practices be stopped, he said, adding that the request had received a formal response.

Apjati also found that individuals working at the airport forcibly confiscated passports of workers returning home on leave.

"They must pay Rp 2 million for their passports if they want to leave Indonesia to resume their jobs after their home leave ends," he said.

Other exploitative practices, he said, included forcing those who had U.S. dollars to exchange them for rupiah at a rate well below the market standard.

It is a bitter irony that these workers, who have left their homes and worked hard to ensure a better life for their families, are subject to this harassment, he said.

He added that law enforcement agencies should have a committed will to ensure that the companies which recruited the migrant workers assumed full responsibility for ensuring their return to their villages.

This is, in fact, mandated in a decree of the manpower minister, but there is scant respect for it in practice.

Unscrupulous people at airports will not allow labor-exporting companies to take care of the returning migrant workers because, ironically, they accuse the firms of extorting additional payments from the returnees.