Workers want mandatory homecoming ruling scrapped
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Former migrant workers and non-governmental organization (NGO) activists protested on Thursday, demanding that the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration revoke a ministerial decree that obligates workers to return to Indonesia before renewing their contracts.
Article 66 of Ministerial Decree No. 104A/2002 states that workers who intend to extend their overseas work contracts have to return to Indonesia for at least 30 days.
"As a consequence, we have to renew our contracts through PJTKI (migrant workers placement agencies), which regards us as new workers. So they cut our salary again for 7 months, which is about HK$21,000 (US$2,700)," said Pegi, a former migrant worker.
"If we renew the contracts ourselves, on the other hand, like workers from the Philippines and Nepal do, through agents in Hong Kong, we only have to pay the agent HK$367," Pegi said.
In Hong Kong, each contract must be validated by the Indonesian Consulate, and the Consul would not legalize the contract unless the applicant first returns to Indonesia.
Nur Syafinah, another former migrant worker who worked in Hong Kong, added, "Moreover, the rule works against Hong Kong's law on workers' days off, which states that workers are entitled to 14 days off for one contract period."
The disparity makes their employers, who do not want to wait 30 days for Indonesian workers to return to Hong Kong, to hire other workers to fill the position. Under such circumstances, the returning workers have no choice but to register themselves as new workers and repeat the recruitment process through the PJTKI.
The director for migrant workers at the manpower and transmigration ministry, Fifi Arianti, met the protesters at the ministry office, and explained that the article was included to protect the workers' rights to see their families in Indonesia.
"We mean well; we don't want to see the family ties of migrant workers to be cut because they don't see each other much," she said.
Fifi said manpower and transmigration minister Jacob Nuwa Wea had made it mandatory for workers to return to Indonesia instead of granting them holiday leave, because he was concerned about the migrant workers' family unity. "We don't want to be blamed for divorces occurring in migrant worker families," she said.
However, she admitted that the ministry had not conducted any surveys on an increase in divorce rates among migrant worker families.
She added that on April 7, the minister had sent a letter to the Indonesian Consulate General in Hong Kong, which included an amendment that workers in Hong Kong could extend their contracts through agents other than the PJTKI.
In response to the letter, Pegi said, "We have to see if the letter gives us more protection. We don't know yet, because there may be any loopholes in it. Well, let's wait and see."
The protesters also deemed the ruling to be presumptuous in claiming that it was drafted to protect their rights to holidays.
"There are countless rights violations that have to be tackled by the government regarding migrant workers, such as underpayment and physical abuse," said one of the protesters.
"So why does the ministry choose to intervene in our family affairs, saying that it wants to protect our rights?"