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Nanik Sutiyah rents a small room in North Jakarta, about three square meters all around, but it still seems sparsely furnished.

A mattress fills most of the space. Nanik shares it at night with her husband and their two-week-old baby.

In front of that, a television sits beside a plastic cupboard. Less than half a meter away, a table has assumed the role of an entire kitchen — stocked with a five-gallon water dispenser, a rice cooker and a small stove. A green gas canister is tucked underneath. This is where Nanik cooks her family’s one daily meal: tofu or tempe and vegetables.

“My monthly salary is not enough — far from enough. But what can I do?” said the 29-year-old, who moved to Jakarta from Bogor to work as a seamstress at a garment factory in Cilincing, North Jakarta.

She is entitled to a sectoral provincial minimum wage (UMP) of Rp 1.38 million ($152) because textile work is among 11 special sectors. About 60 percent of that money goes to her three other children who live with her mother and her brother in Bogor.

In Jakarta, Nanik tries to live on the remaining money, just Rp 600,000 a month. Her husband, Ngatno, sometimes contributes to their income as a temporary driver, but there are often quiet months when he can’t find work.

“I need to pay the room rent of Rp 300,000 per month,” Nanik said. “So I try to put food on the table with only Rp 300,000 each month. But now with the baby, I don’t know how I will manage.”

“I’m still on [maternity] leave, but once I get back to work, I will need a baby sitter. That’s not going to be cheap,” she added.

How much money does her family actually need? Nanik, a junior high school graduate, said she would be happy with enough money to send her children to good schools and feed them with nutritious food.

“Like my fellows in the Factory Workers Forum [FBLP], we only want Rp 2.022 million a month,” she said.

A pipe dream?

But Nanik can only hope.

The Jakarta administration has settled on a monthly wage of roughly Rp 1.52 million for next year, up from this year's Rp 1.29 million. It is now waiting for Governor Fauzi Bowo to approve the figure.

That figure did not come easily. It followed a heated debate between the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo), which demanded a monthly wage no higher than Rp 1.41 million, and the Jakarta Workers’ Forum, which demanded at least Rp 1.52 million.

Deded Sukendar, the head of Jakarta’s Manpower and Transmigration Agency, said that the administration would likely pass the recommended Rp 1.52 million wage. “Apindo must follow it, or we’ll inspect the companies,” Deded said.

Nining Elitos, coordinator of the Indonesian Trade Union Alliance (Kasbi), said Rp 1.52 million would in no way afford workers better living standards.

In setting the minimum wage, she said, the local government still referred to the 2005 Manpower Ministry Regulation, which regulates the Reasonable Living Cost Index (KHL). The KHL considers 46 components of living costs, including rice and other basic needs.

However, Nining said, there have been few updates since the index was first established. The Jakarta-based Committee for Living Wage Action (KAUL) has asked the ministry to annul the regulation, saying more components must be considered today.

“[The regulation] was set in 2005. It’s 2011 now, and no updates have been made to the KHL,” Nining said. “Take for example the places where we live. The KHL says a two- by three-meter room costs Rp 200,000. But can you get a room for Rp 200,000 now?”

“Also, the [index] was set for single workers. What about those who have families?” she added.

Nining said the proposed new minimum wage for Jakarta’s workers was only just enough to keep them alive but far from enough to provide a quality standard of living.

“How can you expect workers to do a good job if they hardly get enough to eat?” she said.

Workers, she said, seem condemned to live forever in rented accommodations.

“Workers still won’t be able to save,” she said. “They won’t be able to put their children through higher education. Many of us are living in debt once we have kids that should be sent to schools.”

Living in debt

Jumisih, chairwoman of the FBLP, said 70 percent of the 80,000 workers in North Jakarta’s special customs bonded estate (KBN) were trapped in a cycle of debt.

Workers struggle to pay off their debt because of toweringinterest rates, sometimes as high as 20 percent.

Nanik herself spent a year trying to pay off a Rp 1 million loan.

“Many workers have children, whether here or in their hometowns,” Jumisih said. “They need money to send home for their kids. When their wages are not enough, they are forced to resort to moneylenders.”

The FBLP once calculated that if industrial businesses were willing to increase workers’ monthly wages to Rp 2 million, they would only reduce their profits by about 3 percent, Jumisih said.

“The point is, they are still making profits,” she said. “But you know businessmen; when they’re making less of a profit than before, they say they are suffering a loss.”

Orizet Mbo’oh, 35, a worker in a multinational company in East Jakarta, earns more than the minimum wage. Nine years into his career, he makes about Rp 3 million per month. Nevertheless, as the head of a family with two children, he says his wage isn’t enough to support his family.

Though he moved to Jakarta in 1995, Orizet has never owned a house in the capital. He said he once borrowed money to buy a house, but he gave up on actually getting one because he couldn’t keep up with other expenses. At the moment, he is living with his parents-in-law.

“I’d say that the minimum wage is just too little,” said Orizet, a vocational school graduate. “It isn’t enough, especially if you have kids.”

Suparti, a pregnant mother who works in the KBN bonded estate, described the results of getting the provincial minimum wage in Jakarta: a slum area home, a small rented room and a shared, filthy bathroom.

“[I spend] Rp 10,000 per meal two times a day,” she said. “The only entertainment is television. I never go to malls or cinemas, I walk straight home after work.

“I have to send money for my family and my child in Pati, Central Java.”

The businessmen’s argument

The chairman of Apindo, Sofjan Wanandi, told the Jakarta Globe that the business body had carefully considered the workers’ needs before recommending a figure for the provincial minimum wage.

“But raises should be based on productivity,” he said. “And let’s be honest, who actually protested the minimum wage? It’s not the workers. Many of them are NGO staff who are not even workers.”

“We didn’t come to the [UMP] meeting,” he added. “We sent a letter to the governor [that we cannot accept the 2012 UMP]. They agreed to make it Rp 1.52 million to appease the protesters, and because it’s nearing [regional] election time.”

Rieke Diah Pitaloka, member of House of Representatives Commission IX, which oversees manpower, said workers today were only seen as commodities. She said the government should be leading the discussion and seeking input from workers, but it has not taken up its proper role.

“In this context, I see the government only as a spectator, or even a close companion to the businessmen,” she said.