Women wokers still face challenges in Indonesia

By Devi M. Asmarani

JAKARTA (JP): Tuti, a newlywed female employee at a garment factory, got an unexpected wedding present from her boss last year: She was asked to resign.

The reason behind the order was that the young woman had married a coworker.

Confused, Tuti went to the Social Legal Aid Information Center (Sisbikum), a non-governmental organization specializing in labor rights. She lodged her complaints and asked for help.

Sisbikum acted as a mediator in her case and she was successful in forcing the company to allow her to continue to working as usual.

Aris Merdeka Sirait, the executive secretary of the Jakarta- based Sisbikum, said that last year the NGO handled 150 legal cases for women, an 80 percent increase from 1995.

Fifty percent of the cases were pregnancy related, 23 percent were due to marriages to coworkers, and 7 percent were over employers who would not give mothers time to breast feed their infants at work.

Sirait said the drastic increase in the number of cases was due to an increase in the number of employer violations.

"Companies have increasingly violated the laws regarding their employees' rights since the plan to raise the regional minimum wage was announced in 1995," Sirait said.

The 10.6 percent wage rise in 1996, which was initially meant to improve worker living standards, turned out to be a boomerang for many female workers, as those companies unable to pay higher wages let go of many married and pregnant workers.

Companies even fired those who had been working for between five and 11 years, he said.

"The practice was just as bad in the garment manufacturing industry where more than half of the employees are women, who can easily be recruited," he said.

The rights of lower-income workers were not the only ones to be violated.

Santi, 27, had been working for a mid-size property company for two years when she became pregnant. Under a manpower ministry law, Santi was allowed three months paid maternity leave, but her company only agreed to give her a month. When she challenged the company, it finally agreed to give her two months, but only one month paid.

The Ministry of Manpower's records show that more than 2.82 million women made up 35.3 percent of the 7.99 million workers in the country last year. Women are expected to make up 53.1 percent of the total workforce by the end of the sixth phase of the government's five year development plan in 1999.

A number of studies have shown that women in the workplace do not enjoy fair and equal opportunity as guaranteed by the law.

One study conducted by the All-Indonesia Workers Union (SPSI) showed that the income of women workers in Jakarta is less than their male counterparts.

Sirait said that although minimum wage levels are equal for both genders, women workers still end up getting less money than men for the same job, and often fewer benefits.

Many companies, for example, only give family benefits to married male workers, but not to married female workers.

Indrasari Tjandraningsih of the Bandung-based independent research center, Akatiga, which deals with labor, small business and property issues, said that women are often given the jobs that pay less and require lower qualifications.

Culture as culprit

Indrasari said that women here are still regarded as second- rate citizens. One cultural perception is that women are more likely to tolerate their working conditions, Indrasari said.

Sirait shared Indrasari's opinion. He said many manufacturing companies do not give two days off for menstruation as required by law, while others have been known to inspect female workers by stripping off their clothes before giving them the day off.

Women in the white-collar sector also come up against cultural barriers, and many have a more difficult time than men advancing their careers, Indrasari said. When women are given a chance to better their careers, they are expected to work twice as hard.

"Many employers, male or female, insist that in order for women to compete with men, they have to neglect their womanly nature," she said.

Many job advertisements demand a single status as their main criterion for hiring women. Some women are beginning to abandon their right to have a family for fear of being dismissed or losing out on career opportunities, she said.

Worse still, women do not have the access to the leadership positions in SPSI, the only labor organization recognized by the government, Sirait said.

"How can there be a reliable advocate for female workers, if they do not have a strong representative in the organization?" he asked.

He also criticized the fact that women do not participate in the making of labor laws for their own gender.

"The current labor bill is now being drafted by male representatives," he said.

Sirait suggested that an alternative labor law be drafted with the help of non-governmental organizations, though, as Indrasari pointed out, most of the problems still faced by female workers are non-gender issues.

"The main problem is how to survive on the low monthly wage, and the labor rights of male workers that are still violated," she said.

She said the problems could not be solved in just one sector, but throughout the whole employment system. Businesses always have a stronger influence on government rulings, she said.

"The demand for the upcoming minimum wage increase, which takes effect on April 1, was initially for 15 percent, but the influential business sector succeeded in reducing it to 10.7 percent increase," she said.

The labor sector, she asserted, must have stronger representatives to compete against the lobbying power of businesses.