SITI ROMLAH
: ROLE MODEL OF WOMEN HOMEWORKERS
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Siti Romlah holding the baby |
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".
