At present, the use of stress terminology has been accepted widely in the study of human resources management. Fred Luthans defined stress as an adaptive response toward external situation resulted in physical psychological deviation and or changing of behavior among the members of an organization (1995). In this contact, stress is believed as the cause and all at once as the results of various factors found in a working environment. De Cenzo and Robbins (1999) stated “Work-related stress is brought about by both organizational and individual factors.asianbookie bandar ..these in turn are influenced by individual differences.” There fore stress will not happen instantaneously, instead it happen through a long process. It means, even though organizational and individual factors have the potential to evoke stress, but not always resulted in a high level one as there were different individual factors that will determine the level of stress experienced by any individual worker.
The impact evoked by the stress is not always negative. De Cenzo and Robbins (1999) stated that stress could be manifested both in negative and positive way. It is said to be positive if it could deliver a maximum performance. But if the stress hampered the performance, it is said as negative.
Negative stress could cause bad impacts both to the individual and organization (Dressler, 2000). Among the negative impacts there was the decrease of working performance, the emergence of physical disease, depression during the work and the decrease of organization productivity. And financially, the high level of stress experienced at the working site will increase the cost of medical treatment paid by the employer. This fact was experienced by PT. Pupuk Kujang Cikampek that should pay health claim at the amount to Rp. 1.479.715,148,00 in the year of 2002. And level of absent of 7% – 10% monthly. The same case also experienced by workers at the garment industry in Bandung. As pointed of by Meri and Madelina (1997) female workers at textile, garment ands stocking industry were experiencing various health problem, among others headache, badback, stomachache and irregular menstruation.
Discussion about working stress experienced by female workers becomes important as the total number of female workers who worked in the industrial sector in Lampung Province these day not less than 27,114 women or 40.30% of the total number of workers in industrial sector. We realize that the role played by a woman is heavier than the one played by male workers. At home woman is responsible for various house hold, children and husband problems. This burden will be heavier and heavier whenever a woman should play a double roles, both as a mother of household and as female worker.
Talking about female workers in industrial sector is talking about not so satisfying phenomenon. Female workers suffered from so many problems in this sector. Surveys carried out by Mari Pangestu and Madelina K. Hendytio in 1997 indicated that female workers were left behind in the cases of wage matters, health security an other rights. The existence of this phenomenon was supported by the research of Ferde Yusuf (1998) mentioning that the most prominent feature within the world of labor were a long working hour (12-14 hours a day), high monthly labor turn over (5%-7%) as well as very high daily absent (10%).
The existence of working stress among the female workers was also revealed by means of interviewing some of the female workers from different jobs. The existence of stress symptoms in working was indicated by the high frequency of suffering from headache, pain in he digestion, anxiety, feeling of suppressed and very high rate of absence. And there was even a tendency that they were absent 1-2 days in a month.