Erna Rahmawati neatly arranged bottles of pumped breast milk in a storage bag. She carefully closed the bag’s zipper and brought the bag to the company’s car. Accompanied by the peer educators, she was ready to deliver the pumped breast milks to the homes of women’s workers of PT Ungaran Sari Garments (PT USG) in Semarang, Central Java.

Erna was one of two employees of PT USG appointed as a driver to deliver pumped breast milk stored in the lactation room to the homes of the workers. “The delivery schedule depends on the number of milk bottles available in the lactation room,” she said, adding that the delivery service could run once a day or twice a day.

In addition to prenatal yoga class, breastfeeding room and post-maternity health programe, the courier service of pumped breast milk, named ASIP, was the latest initiative taken by PT USG this year to support its women employees’ exclusive breastfeeding programmes. Considering that more than 95 percent of the factory’s 15,000 workers are women, their empowerment is one of the company’s key focus areas.

This courier service was initiated after taking into account the difficulties faced by women employees in offering exclusive breastfeeding to their infants when coming back from their maternity leave.

“Women workers approached the management voicing out their concerns in our monthly worker-management meeting about the health of their infants and the ability to sustain the exclusive breastfeeding programme. Understanding the importance of this programme, we initiate the courier service delivering pumped breast milk to ensure the babies get exclusive breastfeeding while their mothers are at work,” told Nur Arifin, Senior Manager for Human Resources and Compliance of PT USG.

Company’s support to workers’ exclusive breastfeeding programme

To encourage more women workers participating in the exclusive breastfeeding programme, the company’s peer educators awarded 15 women employees for successfully providing a six-month exclusive breastfeeding to their babies.

“Now I will have no worry that my baby will run out of milk at home. Breastfeeding can boost children’s immune system and, at the same time, I can save money instead of spending it on formula milk,” said Pangestuti Ayuningtyas, 27 years old, one of the women workers.

Michiko Miyamoto, ILO Country Director for Indonesia, who was part of the launch of the pumped breast milk delivery programme, applauded the initiative taken by the factory.

“Through a transparent and open dialogue between workers and the management, we can make changes that benefit both parties. We need to continue building a climate of mutual respect and mechanisms for consultation that benefit workers as well as the management,” she stated.

PT USG is one of the 216 factories in Indonesia that come under Better Work Indonesia (BWI) programme—a flagship programme under Better Work run by the ILO and the International Finance Cooperation (IFC) to improve working conditions and competitiveness in the garment industry.

PT USG is one of the BWI’s first high performing factories, demonstrating high levels of compliance with national and international labour standards, effective workplace management systems and a full commitment to staff learning as well as advanced worker-management dialogue.

Established in 1975 with only one factory and 200 workers, PT USG has now expanded its production to 13 factories with around 15,000 workers. It has also been recognized as a reputable factory.

“Looking at how far we have gone, what we have done for the welfare of our workers is an investment. When we take care of our workers, they will give back by in the forms of dedication and increased productivity,” Nur Arifin concluded.