Sujono: Portrait of a manual worker

ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post/Surabaya

The first thing on Sujono's mind when he decided to move from his hometown of Pacitan to Sidoarjo city six years ago, was to improve the financial state of his family. He and his family left Pacitan after a friend offered him a job in a leather tanning company in the industrial city, some 12 kilometers from East Java's capital of Surabaya.

"We were tired of being poor in the village, and wanted to know how it felt to live in a modern style," Sujono (not a real name) told The Jakarta Post.

Equipped with determination and barely enough money, he brought his wife and two children to Sidoarjo. They rented a modest house not far from the factory.

The first year living in a large city like Sidoarjo was the most difficult for Sujono and his family. They had to scrape through on his monthly wage of Rp 300,000 (US$30.00) to meet the family's needs. Sujono sometimes skipped his meals at work and brought the food home for his wife and children. "I feel sad when I look back at that year," he recalled.

Nothing much had changed entering their second year in Sidoarjo, except for a job offer as a construction worker.

After moving over to the construction job, the family could gradually save some money from Sujono's daily wage of Rp 25,000. He could even afford to buy a small television set. "I could buy my wife and children new clothing if there were lots of work orders to complete," he said.

However, the condition did not last for long. A while later, the financial situation took a turn for the worse in the country, leading to a lull in the construction sector.

The unavailability of jobs as a construction worker had put the mustachioed man in a bind. He had once, during a whole month, only been contracted to do a single job order with a very low contract value.

Their living condition continued to deteriorate as their children were entering school age. With a heavy heart, Sujono was forced to send his wife and children back to Pacitan to live with his parents, while he chose to continue looking for jobs in Surabaya.

Sujono then found a job as a janitor for a ground handling service company at the Juanda Airport in Surabaya in 2000.

Sujono is quite satisfied with the job thus far, since he can send home a larger sum of money to his family in Pacitan from his monthly salary of Rp 800,000.

The growing number of airlines establishing new routes to cities like Surabaya, has somewhat caused his job as a janitor to be in demand.

"The more airlines serviced by the company, the more money I will get," said Sujono.

However, problems again ensued when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono decided to increase fuel prices on October 1.

Slowly but surely, Sujono has been haunted by the situation. Several ground handling companies had to start streamlining, mostly by terminating the work contracts of a number of cleaning service workers.

"They say that more workers would be dismissed next year. Would I be one of them? Should I return to Pacitan and live in miserable conditions like before?" queried Sujono.