Our work in production countries -
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Healthy women, better work: A travel report
Mandatory rules for the protection of women in factories, medical care for home workers: Trade Union Rights Centre (TURC) is committed to women's health in Indonesian shoe production. Our employees Daniela Bartsch and Johanna Thomas-Hergt visited Jakarta in November 2024.
Office visit at our partner organisation Trade Union Rights Centre (TURC) in Jakarta
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Didit, Nitya, Tuti and Kiki offer us an insight into the joint project. Gender-responsive health protection.
With the support of local unions, TURC has found access to the major shoe factories around Jakarta, where, among others, major brands such as Adidas, Nike, Puma and New Balance produce for the global market. The objective: Improve working conditions for women by applying mandatory health protection rules.
The workers suffer from physical ailments such as back pain or urinary tract infections due to the stressful activity. Because they are afraid to miss their production targets when they go to the toilet. Therefore, they sometimes sit on the machines for up to ten hours without a break. If they do not manage the workload, they have to reckon with humiliations and insults. Violence and assaults by male foremen are also a threat to women.
Factory visit
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Friendly reception at the Parkland World Indonesia 2 factory, where around 9,000 workers produce 42,000 shoes for New Balance every day.
The Korean manager of this highly automated ‘Worlds leading New Balance Factory’ is committed to women’s and health programmes, including as part of our project. For example, there is support for pregnant workers or paid leave for miscarriages.
They also have several opportunities to complain about problems, in particular about the union active in the factory. Behind this is the calculus: Satisfied and healthy workforce, fewer absences and staff changes.
Trade union work – women's power in the second row
© FEMNETAt the Nikomas factory, more than 50,000 workers produce sports shoes for major brands such as Nike and Adidas. More than 90 percent of the workforce is organized in the SPN trade union.
On the one hand, this creates influence – it is easier for trade unions to negotiate with management than in India or Bangladesh.
On the other hand, their room for manoeuvre is limited: The factory management refers to the pressure of the buying companies, the state sets the minimum wages. Women have a hard time getting involved in trade unions. This is due to competitive thinking in the factory and bans from the family – often the husbands prevent this time-consuming activity. Women belong in the house and at the well, so the common motto.
Homeworkers in North Jakarta
© FEMNETThis woman knocks and sticks for the equivalent of two cents per pair of shoe soles in the small home where she lives with husband and daughter. It is hot, stuffy and smells of glue. She collects the motorbike from the factory at the beginning of the month and has to pay for it herself.
If the family helps, they can glue up to 200 pairs of shoes per day, earning them around two to four euros. That's just under 40 percent of the factory wage and hardly enough to live on, not to mention the toxic and stressful circumstances in your own four walls.
She usually only works at night, as the glue is corrosive and the vapours strain the environment – it is a monotonous and stressful activity, especially her back hurts. Many home-based workers suffer miscarriages, are addicted to glue, have a destroyed lung or cancer.
The housing situation in North Jakarta
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Caught in the slum of northern Jakarta, where around 400 home workers live and work: A foul-smelling sewer flows through the neighborhood where children play with the dirty water, the cottage-like houses are run down and dark, after all, there is a school that even the children of the home-based workers can attend, but only up to the sixth grade. At the age of twelve is usually the end, the only option often remains the shoe sticking.
perspectives
As part of our project, TURC supports the organization Homenet, which takes care of the women. TURC was able to win over the local health authority to set up a mobile health centre where doctors and nurses provide medical care to around 50 home workers every three months – their only chance of receiving treatment.