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Are you treating your domestic workers right? Here are their minimum rights
While deliberation has stalled yet again, household employers can refer to some of the key stipulations in the 2004 bill listed below.
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Female domestic workers participate in the May Day rally last year. (Kompas.com/Rima Wahyuningrum)
M
illions of households hire live-in domestic workers in Indonesia, which has a high income inequality. The increasing number of women seeking work has also made domestic workers an inseparable part of the Indonesian household.
However, unclear work contracts and the weak bargaining position of domestic workers have contributed to abuse and exploitation. Severe cases involving physical abuse and denying food have occurred, although they are not commonplace. Nevertheless, long working hours, low salaries and few to no days off are rampant, especially among live-in workers.
Workers’ rights NGOs have urged the House of Representatives to deliberate the long-delayed bill on protection of domestic workers, which was drafted in 2004. But the deliberation has also stalled, because giving domestic workers even minimum rights could potentially upend millions of households that would need to change their long-ingrained habits to comply with the law.
However, conscientious employers might ask whether this is a modern form of indentured servitude or worse, slavery. Am I treating my domestic workers right? Can I fulfill the minimum rights of my domestic workers, even without a law? What are they?
The Jakarta Post spoke with several stakeholders to answer these questions.
What the 2004 bill demands
The National Network for Domestic Worker Advocacy (Jala PRT) said that domestic workers needed the law, because they could not rely on individual employers to ensure that domestic workers were treated decently.
