Seaport laborer's value is only Rp 2.6 per kilogram in Batam
Fadli, The Jakarta Post, Batam
Across from the bustling Batu Ampar port in Nagoya on Batam island one can often see the pristine skyscrapers of Singapore, which is only 20 kilometers away and reachable in 45 minutes by ferry.
Perspiration glistens on the laborers' bodies. Perspiration from their daily arduous toil. This sweaty scene is in contrast with the sleek and chic passengers boarding and getting off the luxurious ferry nearby.
A huge vessel, with a Vietnamese flag, carrying a shipment of rice, anchors close to the pier. The workers rush to a truck - often called a "lorry" in Batam. A crane starts moving the sacks of rice from the ship.
A group of three laborers start arranging the sacks in three piles and soon the lorry is full. It takes three workers to fill up the lorry with a three-ton-capacity, while the other two arrange the sacks, each weighing thirty kilograms, on the crane.
This strenuous work - demanding great physical strength and endurance - is way out of proportion when one finds out the kind of wages earned by these port laborers. It becomes even more amazing when calculated per kilogram carried, which comes to only Rp 2.6.
The entire group of five laborers is paid Rp 40,000 per three- ton truck.
One of the port laborers, Parno - called Nono by close friends - from Banyuwangi in East Java started working on the day he arrived in Batam in 1999. He said that the freight agency he works for had only raised his wages once since that time. Last year it was two rupiah per kilogram and now it is up to the aforementioned Rp 2.6 level. One tends to wonder whether this kind of money amounts to anything in the current situation.
The incongruity of it all becomes even more striking when one notes that the high-quality rice the laborers strain their muscles for is sold in the Batam markets at Rp 6,000 per kilogram.
"It's tough to make ends meet. Batam is a tough place to make a living. But to go back home ... to me, that's the worst embarrassment," Parno laments.
Even getting the daily cheaply paid chores is an uncertainty of its own kind. With a stroke of luck the laborers find themselves doing plenty on a given day. However, on average it is only three loads a day. Depending on the kindness of their coordinators, they sometimes have to accept rates lower than the one for handling the rice shipments.
With his nominal wages, Parno and his colleagues of the same profession can only afford illegal dwelling places - called Ruli - to subsist in Batam.
These humble makeshift huts, wondrously homes to the laborers, are now being vigorously eliminated by the Batam Administration.
Renting rooms would be a disastrous option, as their monthly wages would be nearly gone for the cost of the rooms, which in Batam, ranges from Rp 200,000 up to Rp 300,000.
Another laborer, Suryadi, from Klaten, Central Java, concurs with Parno's bitter comments that the wages are barely sufficient for life's basic needs. Realizing that raising two children does not come cheap, what with the next year's enrollment fee for the oldest to the elementary school, the 32-year-old man jumps from one odd job to another the rest of the day.
"How I wish the people up there (meaning: the freight company managers) would be mindful enough to pay us wages that at least match our primary needs and the work we contribute," says Suryadi, who has completed only elementary school.
The laborers' complaints apparently have fallen on deaf ears, as the recently decreed minimum wage regulation by the Batam Administration does not apply to them. Only the dockyard workers are categorized as skilled labor, whereas it has escaped the regulators' minds that what these port laborers do, day in and day out, is not less, but probably far more, demanding.