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.