Reading the Encyclical Letter of John Paul II on Human Work (Laborem Exercens) in light of the tragic conditions of the Indonesian migrant workers today: A pastoral challenge

Bro. Fransiskus Xaverius Yangminta, cs

Indonesian Migrant Workers

Introductory note: a migrant worker is not a commodity but a human being

In respect to other magisterial teachings related to migration, the Catholic social teaching on human work called Laborem Exercens, is intimately related to the migration phenomenon or human mobility. Although the two terms, migration and human mobility can be used interchangeably, in this article I would prefer to use the term “human mobility” to refer specifically to “human beings” or people who are the main actors of the global migration wheel. Furthermore, human mobility, defined as the movement of an individual or a group outside of one’s own homeland, suggests the fact that the migration phenomenon is no longer limited only to the global movement of commodities or capital but also to the laborers or “foreign workers” as it is properly termed in the labor migration trend. For this reason, the Church’s only main interest in the world of human mobility is the “human dignity” of a migrant worker who is the main actor in the labor migration. Catholic social teaching envisions a migrant worker not as a mere commodity to be easily exported and imported or exploited but a human being to be respectfully treated with a sense of dignity because he or she is created in God’s image and likeness.   Having this vision in mind, in his encyclical letter, John Paul II speaks strongly against any exploitation of workers, be they natives or foreigners. Reading and reflecting on this letter, I am thinking of the ongoing familiar tragic situations faced by many Indonesian workers overseas. The purpose of this study is to show whether or not the teaching wisdom of Laborem Exercens is relevant to or might contribute to the betterment of the living conditions of Indonesian workers overseas. To begin with, I will outline briefly the significant components of the encyclical letter, Laborem Exercens. Then, I will present some examples of the painful stories of Indonesian immigrant workers reported by some of the Indonesian mainline media in the last three years or so.  Finally, I shall conclude the study by evaluating the Indonesian Church’s stand in response to the Indonesian migrant workers and their families left behind and giving some possible systematic pastoral strategies to better serve their specific needs.  

1.     Laborem Exercens: A General Overview

Laborem Exercens was issued by Pope John Paul II on May 15, 1981 on the occasion of the 19^th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. John Paul II did not sign the document until September 14, 1981 due to his hospitalization after the attempted assassination on his life on May 13, 1981. Socio-economic justice for workers is the epicenter of the Laborem Exercens. In other words, it emphasizes the human dignity of workers in their workplaces. In the preliminary remarks of the document, John Paul II elucidates the meaning of work and the ontological relation between man and work, in which he states, “work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself.” Work is, thus, an integral part of human nature. The above definition is widely elaborated throughout the whole document Laborem Exercens, which is divided into five main parts: Introduction (I); Work and Man (II); Conflict between Labor and Capital in the Present Phase of History (III); Rights of Workers (IV); Elements for a Spirituality of Work (V). One may break down these parts into the following themes: work, socio-technological and historical development, human dignity-human rights of workers, and the spiritual-theological components of human labor. The outline of the document can be summarized as follows:

1.1. Laborem Exercens: the Introduction

In the introduction, the document begins with the conviction that people achieve their dignity from their work in spite of struggles and difficulties, which any type of work entails. For this reason, the values of human labor need to be reconsidered and recognized, especially for those who work in the fields of developing industries and technologies. The Church, in this case, calls for particular attention to respect for the human dignity of workers, and it denounces any type of injustices that violate the workers’ human dignity and rights. Furthermore, the Church advocates the global change of social and economic systems.

1.2. Laborem Exercens: Work and People 

The theological basis for work is based on the principle of “dominion” over all the earth. God commanded human beings to subdue the earth; not to lord over it but to take care of it. The principal subject of this task or work is people. The use of technology in work can be both beneficial and dangerous. While technology can be beneficial when it facilitates work, it can also be dangerous when it controls the life of workers. In contrast to a materialistic point of view, the laborers must not be considered merely as instruments of production but subjects of labor. For this reason, the Church demands justice for the workers. By nature, manual and intellectual work brings good to the family and society at large.

1.3. Laborem Exercens: Conflict between Labor and Capital in the Present Phase of History

History tells us that inevitably, in any economic systems there has always been tension between labor and capital. The Church’s social teaching is true to its basic principle, when it claims that priority must be given to labor over capital, essentially because people are not just laborers but, as persons, are superior to work. The Church continues to advocate a just system that fosters reconciliation of labor and capital. Moreover, the Church teaches about the right to ownership from a wider perspective, when it states, “the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use” (#14). Certainly, “common use” here means that the goods of the earth are meant to be shared by all people.

1.4. Laborem Exercens: Rights of Workers 

The rights of workers are an integral part of fundamental human rights. By nature people have to work not only for survival but also for their own human development. Furthermore, people work not only for their own benefit but also for the benefit of their family, society and nation. From a wider perspective, therefore, the duty and the right to work must entail a just employee-employer relationship. The rights of workers include proper employment, just wages or “remuneration for work” and “social benefits” (e.g. days off), and “labor or trade unions,” etc. Moreover, workers with disabilities also have the right to work based on their capabilities and are to be justly paid as well.

Interestingly enough, the rights of workers are applied not only to the natives or citizens but also to foreign workers or immigrants. The Church teaches, “Man has the right to leave his native land for various motives-and also the right to return-in order seek better conditions of life in another country” (#23). Furthermore, the immigrant workers must have the same rights as the native workers or citizens have. The same principle of “capital at the service of labor” is applied to immigrant workers. With regards to the social ethics of emigration, the Church requires that “Emigration in search of work must in no way become an opportunity for financial or social exploitation” (#23).        

1.5. Laborem Exercens: Elements for a Spirituality of Work

Finally, work must also be based on and guided by its spiritual meaning. Although work is considered to be an actus personae, a personal action, it is also part of people’s participation in God’s creative act. It is the work or mission of the church to “form a spirituality of work” so that workers may encounter the presence of God in their workplaces and grow closer and deeper in their relationship with God Himself as well as with their co-workers through their labor. 

Having elaborated the teaching of the Church on human work, we can easily observe that the main concern of John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens and to some extent Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum is the human dignity of workers—who are the subjects of their work—as well as their working conditions. Thomas Massaro puts it eloquently in this way: “Both Leo XIII and John Paul II hold up an ideal of worker for justice that demands close attention to the concrete conditions that face workers in the actual workplace and in the labor markets that determine the availability of work and the terms of employment.”¹ In addition, Massaro observes that both popes are not reluctant to speak about just remuneration or “living wages” for workers, which contribute to their human dignity and human growth.²

2.     Vulnerable living conditions of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia: Observations

According to Indonesian mainline media reports most of the approximately 2 million Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia are undocumented. These undocumented migrants who work as domestic workers (mostly women) and agricultural and construction workers (mostly men), by and large, are unskilled and subject to physical, sexual (mostly women), verbal and mental abuses. Even those migrants, who work legally in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, etc, are not safe from various forms of abuses.

The most common and most dangerous journey of Indonesian migrant workers occurs mainly across the border with the neighboring country, Malaysia, due especially to their illegal migration status. There have been a series of abuses, violence, human trafficking, and exploitation of migrants especially women who are oftentimes subject to sexual abuse. These abuses normally take place at the place of departure, transit or border, and upon arrival. Before the departure, for example, sponsors or recruiters oftentimes overcharge the migrant workers for the costs of their passports. To cite another example, migrant workers who go to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries would be asked to sign a document in a language they cannot understand. The following are some recent difficult working conditions of Indonesian migrant workers, particularly in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. Nowadays, Indonesians are concerned with two of the extreme cases of the plight of Indonesian migrant workers abroad reported by the mainline media.

The first case, is, the story of Siti Hajar, an Indonesian domestic worker in Malaysia dated August 2, 2010.⁹ She claimed that oftentimes, she had been whipped and had boiling water poured over her body repeatedly by her employer, a housewife. She run away helplessly from her employer’s house and ended up in the hospital nearby. Her employer was eventually sentenced to prison for 18 years not only because of what she did to Siti but also because of other domestic workers she had victimized by the same punishment. This case has increased political tension between Indonesia and Malaysia. However, both countries have not really been committed to a comprehensive agreement to protect the Indonesian migrant workers.

The second case is that of Sumiati who was also a domestic helper in Saudi Arabia. Sumiati is one of the approximately 700,000 Indonesian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. In November of 2010, the Jakarta Post reported that Sumiati was “tortured, suffering cuts around her mouth, at the hands of her Saudi Arabian employer, suggesting she was attacked with scissors. She also reportedly had been burned, and this may have been caused by an iron.”¹⁰ She was hospitalized and her employer was been arrested and is still in the process of being sentenced to prison. The Jakarta Post continues reporting that Sumiati’s atrocious case is one of the thousands of other abuse cases, most of which have not been resolved. The crimes are not done only to most of the domestic helpers regardless of their legal immigration status. In fact, many of the migrant workers have died after having been horrendously tortured by their employers. Other forms of injustices are done in terms of working hours. For instance, the migrant workers in most GCC countries (this is based on the shared experiences of Indonesian migrants) work for from 101 to 103 hours per week. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, migrant workers rarely have days off. Unskilled migrants especially those working in manufacturing, construction and plantation (like in Malaysia) are subject to low-paid jobs.

All these types of abuses show that Indonesia, while focusing on the policy or management system of worker’s placement abroad, fails to work on the protection of the human rights of its citizens. Part of the difficulties is the lack of diplomatic collaboration between Indonesia and the host countries of Indonesian migrants, by providing a law or policy that would guarantee the protection of the human rights of Indonesian migrant workers. Furthermore, in the public view of the above-mentioned sending countries, the domestic work is unfortunately construed not as a work but a seemingly modern slavery. Accordingly, this mentality has led to various kinds of abuses experienced by Indonesian domestic workers abroad. The Indonesian government, however, has not yet ratified the recent International Labor Organization’s Convention on the decent work for domestic workers (C-189).11 Consequently, in February 2012, the JakartaGlobe reported that there were thousands of Indonesian domestic workers went down marching furiously in the main streets of Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Semarang and Yogyakarta, and demanding the Indonesian government to approve immediately the above-mentioned convention.12    

3.     Does Laborem Exercens speak to the conditions of Indonesian migrant workers today?

Obviously, the Catholic Social teaching of Laborem Exercens still speaks to the working conditions of Indonesian migrant workers particularly in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. Therefore, one might be right to say that the phenomenon of labor alienation as well as the vulnerable working conditions of workers in Poland, out of which the Laborem Exercens was born, is still relevant to the current conditions of Indonesian workers overseas in particular and other global migrant workers in general. Three of the many concerns in Laborem Exercens that speak directly against the working conditions of Indonesian migrant workers are: First, is the fundamental meaning of “the principle of the priority of labor over capital” (LE 12). This speaks against the pattern of thought, namely the “priority of capital over labor.” Looking at the character of labor migration in the Asian context like Indonesia, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, one might say that the primary concern of businessmen, managers or owners of companies and corporations (including the government) is capital or the qualified production of commodities at the expense of laborers. In other words, Indonesia sends its workers abroad and Malaysia or Saudia Arabia receive them, primarily to increase their economic growth and stability, without taking seriously into account the difficult working conditions and abuses of human rights of the Indonesian migrant workers abroad.

Second, the Church emphasizes that human agents or workers are the proper subject of work and not vice versa. This teaching does not seem to be seriously taken into consideration both by the Indonesian migrant workers and their employers. The Church’s teaching—“work is for man,” not “man for work”—does not seem to reflect the thought pattern of Indonesian migrant workers because they seem to work very hard (overtime jobs) to accumulate wealth in order to feed their families back home without even thinking of their own health conditions. Consequently, they treat themselves or are treated by their employers as “instruments of production” (LE 7) rather than as subjects of their work. One could think that they might have misunderstood what “to earn a living” means, which is thought to be exclusively in terms of meeting biological ends for survival rather than a necessary human and spiritual capacity to grow and to bring a sense of contentment and happiness.13

Third, the Church is concerned with the protection of the human rights of workers including their just remunerations and other social benefits (LE 19). This principle, however, is still far beyond the real experiences of all Indonesian migrant workers as seen in the above mentioned cases. Although in some cases, some Indonesian migrant workers are paid justly, they are still deprived of social benefits like having enough days off or recreation with their friends and families.

Concluding note: a challenge to widening the circles of pastoral care 

Other than on a pastoral-charitable level or may have yet to be visibly carried out, the Church in Indonesia has not widened enough its pastoral outreach program into a more systemic way especially in advocating the socio-economic justice for all Indonesian migrant workers abroad. I think the local Church’s reluctance or timidity to serve Indonesian migrant workers—many of whom are Muslims, and why should they not be pastorally cared for, too—must not be the reason to remain indifferent or stand aloof toward the tangible needs of those vulnerable migrant brothers and sisters. Given the multi-religious composition of human mobility in Asia in general and Indonesia, in particular, the local Church is challenged to begin reconsidering the dynamic character of its pastoral structures in order to give an adequate response to the needs of Indonesian migrants who come from different religious faith traditions.   

If the local Church in Indonesia is truly living out its catholicity and apostolicity, the circle of its pastoral care must be widened and opened to immigrant workers from other faith traditions including Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians, etc. Beyond charitable works, the local Church in Indonesia, therefore, should be participating more effectively in reforming Indonesia’s migration reform policy, including advocacy for the protection of the human rights of overseas Indonesian migrant workers especially in Malaysia and the Middle-East. The Indonesian Bishops’ collaboration with the Bishops of Malaysia and of the Middle-East is indispensable and imperative in order to provide basic social and legal assistance for the Indonesian migrant workers, regardless of their religious background. Furthermore, the Catholic Church in Indonesia should provide some pre-departure programs to those who would be leaving for work abroad. These pre-departure programs would include: offering courses on foreign languages where emigrants want to go to work; giving the would-be emigrant workers an awareness of the costs and consequences or risks as well as benefits of working abroad; providing networks or sources of accurate information about reliable Government or Non-Government recruitment agencies. The Catholic social teachings on human mobility especially the teaching on human work need to be communicated effectively to the migrant workers and their families.

Nilda M. Castro suggests some potential preparations the Church can offer especially in guiding the emigrant workers’ decision-making process, for instance, by providing each emigrant “with correct information regarding the possible destination countries: their laws, and not only labor legislation, their customs, religious traditions, etc.”14 Educating emigrants and their families on human mobility, therefore, is necessary more than ever. This is part of the systemic effort of the Indonesian Church to help the vulnerable emigrants undertake potential measures so that they may be well prepared to face the possible plights that lie before them. While continuing its “work of mercy” through offering charitable services and home shelters, the Church in Indonesia in collaboration with the Church in Malaysia or Saudi Arabia must work together with and encourage the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, to enact emigration and immigration policies and programs that promote peace, justice, and respect of the human rights and dignity of migrant workers. The Catholic social teaching on human work (Laborem Exercens) is one of the best secret resources the local Church in these countries might use in order to illumine their pastoral strategies in influencing or lobbying their respective governments to draft just and humane immigration or emigration laws that guarantee a high respect of the basic human rights and safe working conditions of vulnerable migrant workers and their families.    

YANGMINTA, Fransiskus Xaverius, CS

Scalabrini International Migration Institute (SIMI) @

PONTIFICAL  URBANIANA UNIVERSITY, Vatican City

February 2013

---

1 Thomas Massaro, “The Dignity of Work, Rights of Workers, and Support for Labor Unions,” in Catholic Social Teaching, Thomas Massaro (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), 95.

2 Ibid.

3The VIVAnews, hppt://en.vivanews.com/news/read/191429-more-than-3-mn-indonesians-work-abroad (accessed December 12, 2010), 1.

9 The Jakarta Post, http://www.december18,net/article/indoneisa-and-malaysia-close-deal-protection-migrant-workers (accessed December 13, 2010).

10 The Jakarta Post, http://www.thejakarta post.com/news/2010/11/26/another-indonesian-maid-tortured-saudi-arabia.html (accessed December 13, 2010).

11 ILO-Domestic Workers Convention (C-189) available at http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:2551460 (accessed January 10, 2013).

12 The JakartaGlobe, http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/indonesias-maids-mark-another-year-in-legal-limbo/498319 (accessed January 25, 2013)

13 Gerard Mannion, “Working and being: Social Justice and a Theology for Workers,” In Catholic Social Justice: Theological and Practical Explorations, Philomena Cullen, Bernard Hoose, and Gerard Mannion, eds. (New York, NY: Continuum, 2007),  99-100.

14 Nilda M. Castro, “The Catholic Church among Migrants and Refugees,” in People on the Move (Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, Vol. XXXVIII. L’Osservatore Romano, August 2006), 183.