Sermon on a Beer Crate

(First published in the Bali Advertiser, August 30, 2006)

“So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the laborers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.” – St. Matthew 20:8

A friend came over downhearted a few weeks ago. She had been working three jobs and the day before all three of the do-gooder organizations she worked for had told her they couldn’t pay her. Another friend used to complain that an employer often expected her to stay late without extra pay – but docked her whenever she took time off for a ceremony or illness.

Another Balinese woman I know once worked for a Western boss who never did get around to paying her the rate agreed at the start of the employer-employee relationship. It was always, “Can you wait a few more days?” or “This is all I can afford this month. I’ll make it up to you later.”

I’ve heard the stories time and again from maids, secretaries, personal assistants, and yayasan staff. They are hired at a starting rate – sometimes below market – with promises of an increase in a few months when things get going. The increase never comes. Paydays are delayed. Meanwhile, the expatriate boss – who is so pressed for cash, as employees are told – leads the usual “Bali” life of bars, cars, spas, and restaurant dinners.

What’s funny is to then hear the fly-by-night entrepreneurs and charity doyennes complain about the difficulty of getting good help, how the Balinese and other Indonesians are so poor at planning ahead, how the Balinese have no business sense.

Some of it may just be incompetent money management. It doesn’t seem like it costs much to start and operate a business in Bali, and people jump right in. Also, a lot of people starting businesses in Bali are primarily right-brained – and must assume they get a free pass for being “artists.” Sad to say, artists still have to pay the bills and the help, even in Bali.

Then with yayasans and non-profit organizations, the hired staff may be expected to have the same altruistic devotion and hair-shirt mentality as the foreign do-gooders. And maybe many yayasan workers do feel bad they can’t volunteer to work for a good cause for nothing, but they may need money and help just as much as the people the yayasan is set up to assist.

And some expatriates have a neurotic fear that every Balinese dreams of getting both hands in a foreigner’s pockets. A couple of years ago, before I took to the clean life, my afternoon beers and cigarettes were delivered by my landlord’s son. He’d tack on an extra 1,000 rupiah a bottle to run to the local store. After the daily runs had become established, though, he went into business for himself. He’d buy a case of Bintang at the supermarket, keep the beers in the family fridge, and instead of making 1,000 rupiah a bottle, his take was almost 3,000 rupiah per serving – because the home delivery price didn’t change. I was kind of proud of him and me, too, when his parents reported a few months later that he’d saved his first million rupiahs.

When I related this to a new neighbor, suggesting she make use of my young go-getter beer merchant, as several other people in the area already did, she was certain it was just the sort of trickery the Balinese are born to. She begrudged the little enterpriser’s profit increase to 30 US cents per unit by the cut in his supply costs, maybe thinking that an American little boy, some young would-be Donald Trump, would pass on any savings to customers. Part of the Bali boy’s cunning, apparently, too, was that he had been born cute. They are sneaky like that.

It isn’t the responsibility of visitors and long-term residents to repair the Indonesian economy or get the government and local business community to raise the standards set for minimum pay. But if you caught the statistic reported in the August 20 Jakarta Post, that the number of poor families in Indonesia increased to 19.2 million in August from 17.8 million this January – a rise to almost 40 percent of the total 52.3 million families in the country – and want to do something about it, don’t start another yayasan. Just pay your house help and business employees a fair and equitable local wage, pay them on time, and maybe give something extra at the usual bonus times. An unexpected 100,000 rupiah is only US$10 or so to us “rich” foreigners; to local workers, it can be up to 20 percent or more of their usual monthly income.

And if you happen to live in Penestanan and aren’t yet reformed, start taking home beer deliveries. I know a beer merchant who’s suffered a drop in sales volume.

Copyright © 2006 Lee Roy LeRoi