"ROUTINE" RESISTANCE

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eter along which the struggle continues. Even along this reduced perimeter, however, there is constant pressure exerted by those who hope to regain at least a small patch of what they have grudgingly lost. The resisters require little explicit coordination to conduct this struggle, for the simple imperative of making a tolerable living is enough to make them dig in their heels.

My goal here is only to convey something of the dimensions and conduct of this routine resistance, not its full extent, for that could fill a volume in itself. Inasmuch as a great deal of this resistance concerns the disposition of the proceeds of paddy farming, the best place to begin is in the paddy field itself, with threshing.

Trade Unionism without Trade Uniom

Threshers, u:Uike reapers, are hired and paid by the farmer as individuals. They work in pairs at a single threshing tube and then divide the piece-rate earnings at the end of the day. In 1979, the average piece-rate per gunny sack was M$2. The piece-work organization of the work produces a conflict of interest between the thresher and the farmer whose paddy is being threshed. The farmer naturally wants all the rice from his field and, for that reason, prefers to have the threshers beat each bundle of cut paddy until virtually all the grains are in the tub. The thresher, in contrast, is interested in the cash he can earn for a day's work. 25 Depending on the ripeness of the paddy, roughly 80-90 percent of the grains are dislodged in the first two or three strokes. To dislodge most of the remaining paddy may require as many as six or seven strokes. The tub fills up faster, and the thresher earns more for the day's work, if he beats each sheaf only two or three times and moves quickly to the next sheaf. 26 If he were to work in this fashion, he might thresh as many as ten gunny sacks (M$20) in a day, compared with, say, M$10 or M$12 if he were to thresh each sheaf thoroughly. The difference is vital when one recalls that, for poor men, threshing is the bestpaid work of the season, and there is a premium on making the most of it while it lasts. Nor does the conflict of interest between the thresher's wages and the farmer's paddy end here. A thresher can, in fact, recover the paddy he has left on the stalks if there is someone in his family who gleans. The more paddy poor men leave lying beside the threshing tubs, the more paddy the women in

25. This is especially the case if the season is a busy one and other threshing jobs are available when the current one is finished. Frequently threshing work is In fact morning work rather than day-long work, since the job is so physically demanding that the day begins at dawn and ends early in the afternoon. If the moon is bright, threshing is occasionally done in the evening to take advantage of the cool temperatures.

26. There is also, to be sure, an element of competition among the threshers as well if we see each pair competing to thresh as much as possible of the paddy in a given field.

BEYOND THE WAR OF WORDS • 257

their household can collect once the harvest is over. This provides them with a further incentive to leave some behind.

Expectations have of course developed concerning how many times each sheaf of paddy, depending on the variety and its ripeness, should be beaten. But these expectations require constant pressure and constant supervision to enforce. The first few times I threshed, I wondered why the farmer, even if he was relatively poor, did not thresh himself. After all, I reasoned, he could save as much as M$20 in wages he was paying to others. When I asked a farmer (Mat Isa) at the end of the day, he said that if he did not watch the threshers he would lose half his paddy. This was surely an exaggeration, but it explains why most small farmers supervise their threshers rather than work themselves. As the laborers work, the farmer circulates slowly and makes his presence felt. And when he is at the far corner of the field, when the matting inserted high around the tub to catch flying grains blocks his view, or when he is busy preparing a snack, the number of times each sheaf is beaten diminishes appreciably. The advantage to be gained is marginal and limited, since the farmer-or, as he is called in Malay, "paddy owner" (tuan padi)--will_ notice how fast the tub fills, may casually check the threshed sheaves, and in any event can always decide not to invite the worker back the following season. 27 It has, I was told, occasionally happened that a thresher whose work has displeased the farmer is told he will not be needed the next day, but this is extremely rare. The farmer also avoids, whenever possible, hiring a thresher who has many gleaners in his household. Thus Mat "halus," whose entire family does a prodigious amount of gleaning, is seldom if ever invited to thresh in Sedaka. Other poor men will occasionally send their wives or daughters to glean fields they have threshed, but they are careful not to make a practice of it lest they jeopardize their employment.

Now that there is considerably less threshing work available, the margin for such routine resistance has narrowed. It has not, however, disappeared entirely. The actual number of times a sheaf of paddy is beaten is still a compromise between what the farmer would like and what he is able to enforce-a compromise determined not only by the overall balance of power but by a daily, unremitting struggle in the paddy fields.

Another focus of routine resistance is the determination of the rates of pay for transplanting, reaping, and threshing. The scope for movement is relatively

27. When a close relative of the farmer is threshing, a certain amount of this behavior is overlooked, and the relative, if poor, may take full advantage of the leeway. A number of farmers have told me that they thus prefer to hire non-kinsmen (or, for that matter, to have non-kin tenants), since it is then easier to insist on careful work. Kinsmen who are threshing, they add, make it that much easier for the other threshers to emulate their perfOrmance. Since it is difficult to deny relatives gleaning rights on one's land, that is another reason to avoid hiring them fur threshing whenever possible.

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"let it be known" that he is willing to consider a higher rate depending on how the work goes, he may remain silent, or he may let it be known that he thinks the standard wage is enough in this case. Unless the farmer's rate is clearly out of line and alternative work is available, however, the women will show up for work. Should the field conditions be as bad or worse than anticipated, they are likely to grumble openly as they cut the paddy, passing comments such as "Your paddy is hard [work}; [we're} losing [money}."30 This is a clear signal to the farmer that he is in danger of losing his work force, and he often responds by indicating that he will raise the wage somewhat, though he rarely specifies by how much. If, on the other hand, he believes their claim unwarranted, he may simply remain silent, which is interpreted as a sign of refusal. In this case, the women are faced with a difficult choice; they can continue to work and grumble or they can walk off the job.

The decision to walk off is not taken lightly, because the farmer may well switch to a different share group next season and because any loss of precious harvest income is a sacrifice. If the farmer has a generally good reputation for paying fair wages in the past, the women will probably continue to work while making their dissatisfaction known. 31 But if the farmer has a reputation for stinginess, the women will strike, as they do once or twice a year. The "strike" is not announced, but everyone understands what is happening. Rather than leaving the fields directly, the women are more likely not to return after the midday meal or on the following morning. The farmer will then typically send someone to the share group leader to propose a modest increase in pay to end the strike. More rarely, the farmer may refuse to budge and, if he does, he must recruit outside labor, since no village share group will agree to take the place of another, once the work has begun.

Disputes over reaping wages have become increasingly common as more farmers have turned to broadcasting. A paddy field that has been broadcast-planted is a good deal harder to reap, owing to both the absence of orderly rows and to the much greater variation in the height of the mature stalks. Women have asked for, and gotten, wages as high as M$60 a relong for reaping such fields, especially during the irrigated season when the fields are wet at harvest time. 32 They are also conscious that high reaping wages are a fitting retribution for those farmers who do not hire transplanters. As Rosni said privately when her

30.Hang punya padi susah, rugi.

31.The women's attitude is perhaps best captured by the English expression, "Fool me once, shame on you; fuol me twice, shame on me."

32.Members of the share group frequently point out that both transplanting and reaping have become more time-consuming since double-cropping because the density of plants per relong has increased appreciably. If transplanting and reaping fees are higher than they were in 1969, the women claim that this only reflects inflation and the additional work required.

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group had asked fur M$50 per relong to reap Abdul Rahman's broadcast field, "If he takes away our transplanting, we'll get it back reaping." The farmers' riposte to higher reaping costs is to move, when possible, to the kupang system of paying a flat rate (M$3 or M$3. 50) to individuals fur a morning's work. This is an option only if the farmer's fields are out of phase with others, so that there is a surplus of idle labor at the time. Even then, however,· many women in the share groups will refuse to transplant or reap fur kupang wages, as they understand that is another way of reducing their wage and breaking their rudimentary organization. It is too early to say whether large farmers will succeed in establishing the kupang system as the norm fur transplanting and reaping. What is clear, however, is that the resistance of poor women to kupang work is, thus far, a major factor impeding its adoption.

Conflict over piece-rates rot threshing fOllow much the same pattern as fur reaping. Under normal circumstances, those who are threshing paddy can expect to thresh about fuur gunny sacks in a long morning; at the standard pay of M$2 per sack prevailing in the 1978-79 main season, the laborer would receive at least M$8. But if the paddy is wet or immature and the water deep, it may take an entire morning just to thresh one or two sacks. Open grumbling will inevitably begin, and the farmer understands that an adjustment is called fur. 33 He is under great pressure to make some concession, for any further delay in gathering and drying his crop will inevitably lead to its spoiling. Again, as with reaping, direct demands are rarely presented, but the farmer is made to understand the implicit threat. If he makes, or promises, an adequate adjust- ment-as is typically the case---the work continues in an improved atmosphere. If he fails to raise the piece-rate, he may provoke a strike. Unlike the share groups, however, which strike as a unit, threshers walk out as individuals, although pressure is brought to bear on those who would remain to join in the walkout. The irrigated season harvest of 1979 was an exceptional opportunity fur village threshers in this respect, since heavy rains had cawed widespread lodging at the last moment, and a good part of the harvest had to be gathered by hand or not at all. Farmers were desperate to save their paddy, and two such walkouts by threshers helped to establish a wage of M$3 per sack as the minimum. In each case all the threshers agreed among themselves not to return the fOllowing morning and sent word that they were sick or had been called away

33. Compare this with the description of Russian harvest workers' more explosive reaction to standard piece-rates when the crop had been beaten down by hail, thus requiring much longer to reap. The greater violence of the labor gangs in this case seems particularly attributable to the fact that they were outsiders and strangers. Timothy Mixter, "Of Grandfather Beaters and Fat-Heeled Pacifists: Perceptions of Agricultural Labor and Hiring-Market Disturbances in Saratov, 1872-1905," Rus- sian History/Histoire Russe 7, Pts. I & II (1980): 139-68.