SUNARTI: A WOMAN HOMEWORKER IN YOGTA FOOD INDUSTRY

SITI ROMLAH: ROLE MODEL OF WOMEN HOMEWORKERS

Born in the village of Randegan, Sidoarjo Regency, East Java, Siti Romlah started to learn embroidery using a pedal sewing machine from a neighbor when she was 11 years old and in Grade 5 of primary school. She embroidered in the Putting Out System (POS) for paid work when she was in junior high school during holidays and when she had the time during school days. When she passed junior high school, she became a full time embroiderer in the world of the POS.

She was still a single young woman of 18 years when she joined the group of homeworkers in 1992 organized by YPP through the ILO Danida Project. She was elected as the group leader of Bangkit Kartini I. After undergoing awareness raising activities, she came to know that homeworkers are invisible, exploited, unorganized and unrecognized as workers by law, among other issues.

For her, it was not easy to organize the homeworkers’ group because the intermediary who was their immediate employer is their neighbor. Because of this close proximity and because in the beginning the concept was to make a better employer - employee relationship, Romlah included her in the group. But the intermediary became authoritarian and dominated the group. It is still fresh in Romlah's mind how a new Juki machine belonging to the group and needed by them was by force directed to the intermediary’s house. Romlah and her group members were very much disappointed but not yet empowered enough to deal with her.

Yet this was a blessing in disguise, as under pressure, the group started having regular meetings seriously. To make them more concretely aware of the exploitation through low piece rate relative to the length of working hours, Romlah's group agreed to promote group production under the facilitation of Utami, the YPP field worker. This method was effective in opening their eyes. Through group enterprise, the share of the profit was considerably higher when the market piece rate was applied. When they increased the piece rate of the embroidery by 50%, they still made profit, even when all of the work was paid such as copying the pattern of the embroidery to the piece of the material, which was normally unpaid by the intermediary.

Romlah was the first to initiate the idea of increasing the piece rate . This happened after one year of intensive training, including skills training for fine embroidery, fine pattern development , and matching colors, as well as assertiveness training, group capacity building, gender awareness training, lobbying and awareness raising regarding exploitation by immediate employers/middle persons. All these were decided according to the needs of the group. The improved skill produced fine embroidery. This was important to bargain for higher piece rate coupled with the already growing belief that the piece rate was actually too low and unjust. Other group members who worked for different middle persons were motivated to do the same, and they managed to have the piece rate raised from Rp. 1,500 - Rp. 1,750 to Rp. 1,750 - Rp. 2,000 / piece based on negotiations whenever there were new embroidery orders.

Romlah was also successful in asserting that : 1)Every new order should be negotiated; 2) Once the price had been agreed upon , the immediate employer ought not to decrease the piece rate; and 3) When a group member asked for leave to participate in a homeworkers’ group training, they need not return.

This initiated a process of rising piece rates in the whole village. Amazingly the homeworkers who were pressured by the middle persons not to join the Bangkit Kartini Group also benefited from the higher piece rate.

The happy moments did not last long, however. All of the middle-women in the village united, and backed by their husbands, they resisted the idea of increasing the piece rates. They demanded that Romna’s group be dissolved and that the YPP field worker (Utami), be expelled from the village for good. When Romlah and the group members refused to comply with the demands, the men, the husbands of the middle-women, held sickles up ready to kill the field worker. Romlah confronted them and said the best way was to go to the head of the village. Together with almost the whole village who witnessed the incident, they marched to the house of the village head. Romlah served as spokesperson for the group and they won.

The middle-woman who kept the sewing machine eventually made a statement of ownership of it. Romlah organized on ad-hoc meeting with her group. With courage and strategy, she went with other members of the group to the house of the woman, and managed to get the group’s sewing machine out of the house. Together, they lifted up the machine and carried it themselves to Romlah's house. Several group members were no longer given jobs by the middle woman. Again, this proved to be a blessing in disguise. They became full timers in the group enterprise. Under Romlah’s skillful leadership, the group was even more strengthened as each member was assigned a particular function.

In the initial attempt to link homeworkers organized by Merdeka University in East Java in 1996, Romlah was selected as the chair-person of the East Java Association of Women Homeworkers. Again, a challenge was faced by the group when another middle-woman reported smaller profit to the Department of Industry. Romlah was scolded by the official, blaming her as the cause of the problem. Unable to face it herself, she demanded that all her group members as well as the YPP Executive Board Committee be present in the meeting. On the day of the judgment by several officials of the Department of Industry, the group won. All these experiences made Romlah stronger as a leader.

The group, however, was very badly affected by the acute Indonesian economic crisis which began in 1997. All of the group savings were lent out and and no one was able to return the loan. The treasurer left. Romlah was blamed and held responsible. It was this time when an ILO Geneva project came in, and YPP helped to facilitate the reconciliation. Throughout the crisis, Romlah fought several times to obtain a safety net program, but Bangkit Kartini was branded by the officials as just a group of workers and therefore not qualified to obtain the safety net fund. To the dismay too, of group members, the middle women were qualified to obtain the fund.

Romlah managed however to receive orders from Sidoarjo niche embroidery producer for her group and at a better piece rate than others. She has promoted herself from a homeworker to an intermediary with a heart for homeworkers she organized.

Day by day, Romlah gets stronger with all of the experiences. She is now capable of speaking before East Java's provincial officials as well as those at the national level. Several home-workers from the Urban Jakarta special territory expressed their good feeling about her, stating in simple language : "I want to be like Romlah".