Steep road of Draft Law on Protection of Domestic Workers

The government and faces of people’s representatives of the House of Representatives have changed for several times. The Draft Law on Protection of Domestic Workers, which was submitted to the House of Representatives in 2004, however, has not been passed, even until today.

The long road to the draft law for being passed has been blocked in many ways. According to Jala-PRT Coordinator Lita Anggraini, the suspension of the draft law’s adoption is not separated from the House’ wish to put the position of domestic workers equal to workers of other sectors. Domestic workers are still regarded as the lowest-class ones in the pyramid of workers. “Their workloads are maximum, but appreciation to them is minimum,” she said.

Yet, Lita said, based on the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 189, domestic workers have already received a position equal to workers in other sectors, including to receive decent wage, eight-hour working hours, holidays at weekends, monthly leave and social security scheme. “Without a legal umbrella, the profession of domestic worker is vulnerable to arbitrary treatment by employer, including sexual violence and harassment,” she said.

The draft law itself is currently kept at the House, but it has not been included into the 2015 National Legislative Program. The House itself is still weighing it up because they need to consider the capability of employers to pay domestic workers.

Firman Subayo, deputy chairman of the House’ Legislation Body, said that not all employers come from the middle and upper classes, so when the draft law is passed into law, it can affect the absorption of manpower. “Most of them are recruited based on the kinship basis. We don’t want this policy burden the community (domestic workers’ employers-eds.),” he told Varia.id on Tuesday, August 11, 2015.

In the future, the House will conduct again some studies by inviting experts, sociologists, employers from the middle until upper classes, activists dealing with domestic workers and domestic workers. In other words, the draft law still has to stay at the House for indefinite time.

“Basically, a law must be made transparently, openly and does not violate the rights of all components of the community,” Firman Subagyo added.

Although the House has not passed the draft law into a law, early this year, the government issued a regulation to protect domestic workers – the Manpower Ministerial Regulation Number 2 Year 2015 on Protection of Domestic Workers.

The regulation stipulates the rights and obligations of domestic workers, including the rights to be informed on the identity of the employer, the rights to get treated well, getting wage in accordance to the working agreement and getting healthy food and beverage.

Furthermore, the ministerial regulation also explained the other rights of domestic workers, such as the rights to get enough time to rest, leave based on the agreement by both sides, time to perform their religions, religious holiday bonus and rights to communicate with their families.

The ministerial regulation also regulates agents of domestic workers. It is stipulated that the agents must have official entities from the central to regional government levels.

However, just like other ministerial regulations, the Manpower Ministerial Regulation Number 2/2015 has no legal power to impose any legal sanctions. Muji Handaya, director general for manpower development and supervision, admitted that the regulation is only a kind of appeal. The only strongest legal umbrella to protect domestic workers is law.

“But at least, through the ministerial regulation, we have already made a memorandum of understanding with agents of domestic workers, so they treat the domestic workers well. This is what the government can do now,” Muji said some time ago.*

The Journey of the Draft Law on Protection of Domestic Workers at the Parliament

Year	Journey at the House
2004	Jala PRT submitted the Draft Law on Protection of Domestic Workers to the House
2004-2009	Included into the 2004 – 2009 National Legislative Program, but it was never deliberated.
2009	Through a proposal by the House’ Commission IX, the draft law was included into the priority list of the 2010 National Legislative Program.
2010	The House’ Commission IX halted the deliberation of the draft law. They were then forced by the civil society to deliberate it again, but it was never deliberated in 2010.
2011	The Commission IX set up a working committee for the draft law. The academic paper was made by the House’ Secretariat General and presented to the House’ Commission IX. It once disappeared from the list of the 2012 National Legislative Program. But after being questioned again, in December 2011, the draft law was included again into the list of the 2012 National Legislative Program.
2012	It was deliberated for three times by the House’ Commission IX. The working committee on the draft law conducted comparative studies in South Africa and Argentina.
2013	The working committee paid working visits for public exposes in Makassar and Malang. It was submitted to the House’ Legislation Body for harmonization.
2015	It was included into the list of the National Legislative Program, but was later dropped again from the list.

This article is the final in-depth article on rights of domestic workers from a series of three in-depth articles by Muhammad Irham and Vela Andapita of Varia News and published on 15 August 2015. The article is part of the ILO’s media fellowship programme on domestic workers and child domestic labour, jointly conducted in collaboration with the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Jakarta and eight selected leading, national mass media. The media fellowship programme was part of the campaign conducted by the ILO through its Promoting Decent Work for Domestic Workers to End Child Domestic Work (PROMOTE) Project. Funded by the United States Department of Labour (USDOL), PROMOTE Project aims at reducing child domestic workers significantly by building institutional capacities of partners to promote Decent Work for Domestic Workers (DWDW) effectively. The Project works to increase the knowledge, skills and expertise on reducing child domestic workers and promote DWDW.