Los Angeles Times, 17 October 1992
INDONESIA'S FOOTWEAR WORKERS TOO THIN FOR AEROBICS
By Charles Wallace
TANGERANG, Indonesia -- Suyatmi, a shy, 20-year old factory worker, is too
poor to know much about sneakers. She's never heard of Bo Jackson and is
too skinny to care about aerobics.
Her world consists of a rented, 5-foot sqaure room in a shantytown
where she sits on the concrete floor with three other young women.
Every day a t 7 a.m., Suyatmi begins work at P.T. Hardaya Aneka Shoes
Industry, one of six companies in Indonesia making shoes for Nike Inc.,
the spectacurly successful U.S. sporting goods company. Her production
"line" of 30 workers produces 350 pairs of Nike's glitzy footwear a day.
Suyatmi and her co-workers earn a base salary of 1,900 Indonesian
rupiahs a day, the equivalent of $1.15. Working a six-day week, with a
least two hours of overtime each day, she takes home about $17 per week.
The company also gives her lunch and a bus ride to work.
"Some days it's hard," she said. "But I'm just happy to have a job."
But American labor unions and human rights groups aren't happy with
the conditions she has to work under. And they are lobbying the U.S.
government hard to intervene with the Indonesian government.
In August, the U.S. government surprised union activists by agreeing
to look at workers' rights in Indonesia before deciding whether to
continue granting Indonesian products a special import status called
zero-tariff benefits. Losing the benefits would hurt Indonesian exporters.
This week, U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills is holding hearings
on petitions filed by the human rights group Asia Watch and the
International Labor Rights and Education Research Fund that accuse
Indonesia of pressing development at the expense of workers' basic rights.
"The right to freedom of association, the right to strike and freedom
from forced labor are not guaranteed in Indonesia," said the Asia Watch
petition.
"In fact, when when workers have attempted to form independent unions
or to carry out strikes, they have been hindered by excessively
restrictive government regulations and by harassment, intimidation,
intervention and beatings by members of the Indonesian security forces."
The controversy highlights a continuing debate about developing
export industries based mainly on cheap labor.
From South Korea to Taiwan to Thailand, industries that depend on
low-cost labor have helped those countries industrialize, raise living
standards and propel themselves into more prosperous high-tech
manufacturing. Now, countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam
want to get a foot up the ladder, too.
With a population of 185 million and an economy dependent on oil
exports, Indonesia had to find some way to create jobs.
The development of manufacturing has propelled the country ahead with
brathtaking growth.
The gross domestic product, a tally of goods and services, has risen at
more than 6 per cent a year for the last decade. Canada, in comparison, will
finish this year with a GDP of 1.5 per cent and next year's growth is
predicted at 3.5 per cent.
But at the same time, workers' real wages -- pay after taking account
of inflation -- have been "basically flat" since the late 1980s, the U.S.
embassy in Jakarta said in a report.
By government estimates, the minimum wage here is eqaul to just 67
per cent of what officials have termed the "minimum physical needs" --
enough to buy subsistsnce food and housing.
"The situation here is similar to the end of the last century in
America and Europe -- half work and half slavery," said Jakarta labor
activist Indera Nabadan, who closely monitors the shoe industry.
"The workers are exploited for low wages. They are subsidizing the
development of the country."
For each pair of shoes, Nike and Reebok typically pay $1.25 for labor
and $1.25 for overhead, spend $11 on materials and take $74 for the
company, said Payaman J. Simanjuntak, director general of the ministry of
manpower for industrial relations.