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yah, 41, is a wife, mother and homeworker for a shoemaking company. In the morning, she wakes up to cook rice and meals for her family as well as doing other household chores.

As soon as her daughters go to school and work, Iyah switches her role, sitting on the terrace of her house in Penjaringan, North Jakarta, to start assembling shoe insoles with her husband.

At noon, her husband goes to deliver hundreds of finished insoles and returns home with another batch for them to assemble the next day. They have to take a pedicab to carry all the insoles, which costs them Rp 20,000 (US$1.36) daily. Later, they continue their work until the afternoon, and sometimes until 8 p.m. at the latest.

Meanwhile, to achieve the target of delivering 1,200 pairs of insoles to her employer, Iyah and others have to work hard Monday to Friday, and sometimes on the weekends too.

On Saturday night, she receives her weekly wage. But that does not excite her anymore as she has spent 13 years as a homeworker. Now, their financial situation is more stable as they always get orders from their employer. But working as homeworkers, even for the long-serving, does not guarantee their basic worker rights.

In 2013, her husband had a heart attack, and since the family had no social security insurance, she had to take a Rp 2 million loan from her employer.

Homeworkers also do not receive the Idul Fitri holiday bonus, as the company keeps some of their wage and returns it to the workers for the Idul Fitri holiday. “It’s basically our wage,” she said. “But it’s actually a good thing because then we’re forced to save our money.”

Saving money can be tough when each insole is worth only Rp 200, while each rejected insole costs the worker Rp 14,000. Iyah has to repeatedly assemble untidy insoles to avoid the fines. Still, she said, every week she has to pay for the rejected insoles. “They don’t return the rejected insoles to us,” Iyah said.

Iyah’s case is the tip of the iceberg. Many other homeworkers in Jakarta face similar experiences. Ahmad Mustafad Vauzi from the Trade Union Rights Center (TURC) told The Jakarta Post on Monday that “We’ve never found any [homeworker] with a better condition, if there is it’s only in terms of the wage,” Vauzi added.

According to TURC data, the average weekly wage of a 6-day homeworker employed in the shoe industry in Jakarta is between Rp 270,000 and Rp 360,000. The minimum wage in Jakarta is Rp 3.6 million.

“In the area we visited, there were 46 homeworkers in only two neighborhood units ,” he said.

The TURC is assisting 88 homeworkers from two districts in North Jakarta. Vauzi said he believed there were still many more homeworkers in Jakarta working in various industries, such as footwear, garments, food and even dolls.

Despite the high numbers of homeworkers, there is no law regulating their working conditions, resulting in no legal protection and no clear definition of their rights and obligations as workers, labor analyst Payaman Simanjuntak told the Post on Monday.

“Law No. 13/2003 on labor only regulates formal workers, not informal ones [like homeworkers],” Payaman said. Homeworkers had no other option but to take low-paying job with very little employment protection and a weak bargaining position, he said.

Payaman added that a law on homeworkers was needed as many industries frequently hire them. “So there will be justice in hiring homeworkers,” Payaman said. “And their rights and obligations will be guaranteed as well as their health and safety.”

The Manpower Ministry’s Industrial Relations and Social Security Development Director General Haiyani Rumondang has yet to respond to the Post’s request for comment. (stu)