Seminar of CLARA Fellow, Dr. Erwiza Erman (LIPI, Jakarta-Indonesia):

Gendered Labour Politics of the Ombilin Mining Community, West Sumatra (1892-1965)

Thursday 22 March 2001 Witte Singel, University of Leiden
(in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Forum on Indonesian Women Studies - WIVS)

by Ratna Saptari

Based on her research in a mining community in Ombilin, Erwiza Erman cogently brought into focus the inseparability of labour politics from the historical trajectory of the community itself and the way in which the gendered subjects were positioned vis-à-vis state, employers, and political organizations. Through the period between 1892 - 1965 the politics within the community went through various stages of activism, from individual resistance, to collective resistance to accommodation and afterwards again to collective protest only to be squashed again with the obliteration of the Indonesian communist party. The vulnerability of the workers position was particularly augmented by the divisions within the miner's community itself. The insecure and unprotected spheres of the coolies' barracks and the mines were characterized by ethnic conflicts, the embedded culture of violence among convict laborers and the conflict and competition within and between various categories of laborers, in their efforts to gain scarce resources such as food, money and women. In this sphere of masculine survival, women's positions were defined through their relationship with the miners and the employers. A small percentage were contract workers, and some were concubines and prostitutes. After 1925 the politics of resistance changed, from an individual, unorganized form to collective and organized protests. Women became active actors who nevertheless worked in the shadow of the political activities by men. Many women from coolies' barracks had been involved in preparing meals for strikers. From the side of the employers women who ideologically and socially not brought under the category of the framework of 'the family' were deemed to be a threat to workers' stability - or their compliance as workers. Therefore, before the uprising broke out, most European family had dismissed their indigenous, fearful of their radical political actions. Their struggle reached its culmination in the communist uprising of 1926/1927.

After the failed communist uprising of 1926/1927, miners' politics underwent a shift from resistance to accommodation, or collaboration. Since many activists were imprisoned or executed, the labour movement lost its momentum in West Sumatra and Java. Their subordinated position not only associated with the absence of strong leaders in radical political parties, but also linked to effects of the economic depression and the changing face of the mining society.

Between 1958 - 1960, the total number of workers in Ombilin dropped, because many of them, especially the non-Javanese, left the mine and joined the PRRI, reflecting a regional protest to central government. The employers responded by obtaining new recruits (preman or unemployed people), young unmarried men from Jakarta and other cities in central Java. There were women, but they were very few, and worked only in the sorting of coal, and low administrative matters in the office. In the late 1950s and early 1960s with the stronger role of the unions, and particularly the PKI affiliated ones, miners and their families were involved in social and cultural organizations that some of them were affiliated with the PKI, such as People's Youth (Pemuda Rakyat), the Association of Indonesian Farmers (Barisan Tani Indonesia-BTI) and the Indonesian Women's Movement (Gerwani). Apart from this, the mining community also established various musical, sports, and religious groups. The musical groups were Ketoprak, Kuda Kepang, Kecapi Sunda, Randai, and Keroncong. Basically these associations functioned to create various forms of solidarity. The women activists mobilized women for various activities in Durian, Surian, and Sikalang villages such as arisan or a voluntary savings rotation association, mutual assistance in times of need (such as deaths, births, and marriages), anti-illiteracy courses, co-operative shops, sports, political courses and so on. The involvement of miners and their families both in formal and informal representations had changed the forms of their responses to company, from the politics of accommodative during the 1930s to the politics of protests. In the period of democracy, when state control was weak and the Indonesian economy was weak, the miners, with the support of their families economically and politically, became more militant. A political democratic climate allowed them to protest more openly, struggling to improve their futures.

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