Sony pledges to go all out to keep running its business

JAKARTA (JP): Electronic giant PT Sony Electronics Indonesia vows to go all out to keep running its business despite the ongoing massive strike by its workers since April 26, its executive said on Friday.

"We'll continue operating in Indonesia. I don't think we'll go bankrupt because of this strike," the firm's finance manager, Satoshi Kanenori, said during a visit at The Jakarta Post office.

According to Kanenori, his company's decision to keep operating its sole Cibitung plant in Bekasi amidst the prolonged strike was due to several factors, including Sony's commitment to its 71 local suppliers.

"We really want to stay here. We believe that this country of 200 million (population) is still a potential market for us," he said.

Currently about 95 percent of the VCD player and television sets produced by the plant are shipped to overseas markets.

"In the future, we hope that we could further expand our domestic market," Kanenori said.

So far, he said, Sony Indonesia has suffered "only few" losses due to the strike, which is being carried out by 900 of its 1,500 workforce and is still continuing at its one plant in Cibitung, Bekasi.

Accompanied by the firm's assistant manager of the corporate planning department, Abdullah Saleh Sanad, Kanenori also refuted the May 16 report of the Post, which stated that the Japanese company had suffered some US$200 million in losses following the strike.

The figure was based on a telephone interview with the company's assistant manager for quality control, Husin, who said that the firm suffered a total loss of $40 million alone during the first strike, which lasted for three and a half days beginning Feb. 28 this year.

"He (Husin) gave the wrong figure. We cannot afford to lose so much money and survive. Two-hundred million dollars is our total annual sales amount for all of Indonesia," Kanenori said.

But he refused to disclose the estimated figures, saying that it's not easy to calculate the amount since the plant produces a wide variety of different items.

"It's just a small amount," the finance manager said repeatedly.

The company is the sole producer in the country of Sony products and normally produces an average of some 4,000 items per day.

Due to the strike, the company was forced to reduce its production lines from 12 to two lines currently.

Some of the products have even had to be shifted to Sony's plants in neighboring Malaysia.

Abdullah really hoped that the government, particularly the local Bekasi authorities, could do something to stop the strike which has already lasted for three weeks.

"We're really suffering here. It's a headache for us," he said.

"We have met with local offices and the local labor unions to settle the dispute, but still there's been no clear action so far," Abdullah said.

On April 26, Sony workers -- most of them in their work uniforms -- gathered outside the United Nations (UN) building in Central Jakarta to express their anger over unfavorable working conditions at the plant.

Some of the workers distributed leaflets to motorists and passersby, urging them to boycott the company's products.

They also unfurled posters and banners, some of them reading: "Stop using and buying Sony products" and "Japan, 1942 = Romusha (forced labor), 2000 = Capitalist."

Protest coordinator Judy Winarno claimed at the time that the company had intimidated the workers by firing one of their union officials, Gama Juliyanto, for unspecified reasons last year.

Judy, also an official at the Indonesian Metal Workers Union branch at the company, said the company had limited the rooms available for union officials to organize union activities.

"They have also prohibited workers from receiving phone calls, even from their families. The workers also have to report to their supervisors if they want to go to the bathroom," he said.

But both Kanenori and Abdullah said that the dispute began shortly after the management in January introduced a new working system at the plant in which most of the workers on the production lines were required to stand during working hours.

"They rejected the new working system, saying that they quickly became exhausted by it, although we're not the first company to use it and many of the neighboring plants (in Cibitung) have been using the system for years," Abdullah added. (bsr)