[sustran] Jakarta's pedicab drivers' Network - fwd

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

The latest edition of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights' excellent
newsletter, "Housing by People in Asia", No. 12, April 1999, has several
inspiring items on transport issues. I plan to post them here on the
sustran-discuss list over the next few days. Here are the first two items
on pedicab drivers' efforts to get organised in Jakarta.

SUSTRAN Network Steering Council member, Walter Hook of ITDP was recently
in Jakarta and met with several groups, including UPC and LPIST that are
involved in helping the pedicab drivers to organise themselves. Perhaps he
has something to add?

Paul.

A. Rahman Paul BARTER
SUSTRAN Resource Centre
P.O. Box 11501,  Kuala Lumpur 50748, Malaysia.
Tel/Fax: +60 3 2742590,  E-mail: sustran at po.jaring.my
Web: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/2853/
The SUSTRAN Resource Centre is a not-for-profit organisation 
that promotes and popularises people-centred, equitable and 
sustainable transport with a focus on Asia and the Pacific.


MEET GOPUR, ONE OF JAKARTA'S 5,000 PEDICAB DRIVERS

A video documentary produced by Urban Poor Consortium (UPC) describes the
life of Gopur, one of Jakarta's pedicab drivers, and looks at how the
govemment's pedicab policy flip- flops have affected his life and the lives
of thousands of others like him (drawn from notes sent by the UPC's Edi
Saidi). 

Gopur is thirty-five years old, and lives in a tiny rented room he shares
with four other pedicab drivers. Once a month, he returns to Pemalang, a
small town about 300 kilometres east of Jakarta, where his wife, a seasonal
worker in the rice fields, looks after their four children. 

When Gopur first came to Jakarta in 1978, he worked in a factory, then
later sold fruit. When the economic crisis hit, fruit prices skyrocketed
and most of his customers could no longer afford his papayas, guavas and
pineapples, and his earnings plunged from 30,000 to 10,000 Rupiahs a day -
that's about the cost of 4 kilos of rice. 

To supplement his dwindling fruit business, Gopur started driving a
friend's pedicab, which he rents for 2,500 Rupiahs a day. It turned out to
be his best-earning job yet. He could earn Rp.15,000 in a morning -
sometimes more - by carrying people and goods around the old market at
Jelambar Baru in West Jakarta. This added income allowed him to send home
almost 150,000 Rupiahs every two weeks. 

Gopur hopes that some day, when the pedicab ban is lifted, he can buy his
own pedicab and stop worrying about the rent. he doesn't want his children
to follow the path he has taken, wants them to have a better life. "Any job
would do, as long as it is not pedicab driving. It is hard, you know, to be
harassed every day by the eviction squad." 


JAKARTA PEDICAB DRIVERS NETWORK

The three-wheeled, human-powered pedicab can transport two or three
passengers, or carry just about any kind of goods, from sacks of rice and
vegetables to furniture or tethered goats.  Because they are safe,
comfortable and cheap, the slow-moving pedicab is a favorite with women who
use them for daily marketing and for picking up kids from school. And it's
a decent job, too. Where factory workers work long hours and take home
10,000 Rupiahs a day, at the most, a pedicab driver can make up to 25,000 a
day, with flexible work times. 

Pedicabs have been around for half a century, but in the early 1990s, a new
law banned pedicabs from Jakarta's streets, claiming they weren't safe,
caused traffic jams and had a "high correlation with Jakarta's crime rate."
Since then, the popular pedicab hasn't gone away, it's just gotten a lot
riskier to drive one. Confiscation - the pedicab driver's biggest nightmare
- can mean loss of job, income, investment. 

Last June, amidst a worsening economic crisis and a growing pro-reform
movement in Indonesia, Jakarta's newly-appointed Governor Sutiyoso
announced that pedicabs would again be allowed to operate. He did this
without first repealing the old law, though, and faced strong criticism
from the city council.

Thousands of pedicab drivers came flooding into Jakarta from villages all
over Java, and by July, more than 5,000 pedicabs were doing a brisk
business on the city's streets.        Some rent pedicabs for two or three
thousand rupiahs a day, others borrowed from relatives and cashed in life-
savings to buy second-hand pedicabs of their 
own for 300,000 rupiahs. (A new pedicab costs about half a million
rupiahs.) But after only one week of free pedicabbing, pressure from
opponents in the government and in the powerful motor transport lobby
reversed the policy. Pedicabs were again confiscated, leaving thousands of
men without jobs - this time hopelessly in debt.

Unless they happen to come from the same village or stay in rented rooms
together, most of Jakarta's pedicab drivers don't know each other. When
pedicabs are confiscated, drivers deal with the crisis alone, and most
never get their vehicles back. During the ban, the Urban Poor Consortium
began working with pedicab drivers in five communities. They organised
rallies, which provided a platform for drivers to meet, organise themselves
and discuss strategies for dealing with eviction squads, negotiating with
the municipality. 

The Pedicab Drivers Network now includes 3,000 drivers in 24 communities,
and has initiated a weekly savings scheme. The ban is still on, but
pedicabs are still on the street. A big demonstration in October, which
resulted in the release of all confiscated pedicabs to their owners, has
given a big boost to the drivers' struggle for their right to work. 

CONTACT:
  Urban Poor Consortium (Konsorsium Kemiskinan Kota)
  Billy Moon Blok H-I/7 Jakarta 13450
  Phone/Fax: 62.21.8642915
  e-mail:  upc at centrin.net.id
  Urban Poor Website: http://welcome.to/urbanpoor