M

RT, or Mass Rapid Transit, is the Singapore railway system known for its efficiency and timeliness.

PRTs are pembantu rumah tangga, or household helpers — who are not known for their efficiency and timeliness, especially when it comes to returning to work after Idul Fitri.

Judging from the mass panic of middle-class households, whose main income earners have to resume their professional duties, the mass rapid non-return of PRTs is a real household and social headache.

I had that same experience myself. “Yayah”, my 52-year-old PRT who had worked for me for 6 years, didn’t return. She did, however, call to let me know she wasn’t coming back, claiming her children forbade her from working.

That didn’t seem like a very plausible reason, and a week later I found out through her brother-in-law she had found work with a former boss in Bandung. And for good reason: her two adult children, a son and a daughter, both live in Bandung.

It had always been Yayah’s dream to live close to her children. I was very happy that finally she could fulfill her dreams, but her not telling me beforehand was very upsetting.

Yayah has always struggled with sungkan — an Indonesian word that means reticence, reluctance, fear, shyness, embarrassment and awkwardness all rolled up into one. Sungkan behavior is often a result of a perceived and real gap in social position — from the point of view of the one who holds the lower position, naturally.

Yayah’s sungkan of not telling me she wasn’t returning hurt me deeply, as over the years we had developed a relationship based on mutual support and trust. Or so I thought. But how about all the other maids whose sungkan to tell their bosses that they won’t return is just a flimsy excuse for lack of responsibility and courtesy?

Living on my own, it’s relatively easy to take care of myself. But what about families with kids, where both husband and wife work? The presence of a PRT is central and crucial to modern families, because nowadays, earning a double income is often the only way to make ends meet.

One young woman I know, “Dini”, in her mid-30s, told me her maid didn’t return, but then called and said she would if her salary was raised. Dini and her husband felt blackmailed, but agreed anyway, because “We are both working parents and need her to cook, do the laundry, clean the house, and also to look after the kids at home!”

In the old days, elite and middle class families had domestic helpers who stayed with them for decades, and who really were a part of the family. This phenomenon has now virtually disappeared, but professional domestic workers are not yet in existence. What to do?

A Bill for Domestic Workers that would formalize PRTs as workers has been in development since 2005. But in 2010 it was more or less shelved, indicating reluctance, even an aversion, to officially regulating domestic work. The fact that PRTs are called “helpers” rather than “workers” is an indication of this aversion.

What people don’t realize is that a Domestic Worker Law is for everyone’s benefit — not just the PRTs (who often have to suffer bad working conditions, even abuse), but also their employers.

The practice of PRTs not returning back to their workplace is increasingly common because they want to seek out better opportunities — especially the young and restless.

Sometimes they don’t return because they don’t like their boss or their work conditions, or because they get bored — and sometimes they are simply enticed by their friends to move elsewhere.

If the Domestic Worker Bill were passed, this would impose responsibilities on employers (salary levels, working hours, yearly leave, etc.) and PRT to fulfill their obligations according to their job descriptions.

In short, the law would make the relationship between employers and workers a professional contractual one, rather than the unclear, pseudo-familial affair it is now, fraught with uncertainties, second-guessing and deception. A domestic Worker Law wouldn’t instantly eliminate our sungkan culture, but it would be a step in the right direction.

So I think I’ll join up with Dini to rally other working women to march on the DPR (House of Representatives) to demand they unshelve the PRT Bill and pass it as Law. Maybe we can’t instantly make MRTs out of the 10,744,887 PRTs in Indonesia, but perhaps we can make at least make it to the first station!

— Julia Suryakusuma