Sony workers continue with sit-down protest

JAKARTA (JP): Electronic giant PT Sony Electronics Indonesia has suffered some US$200 million in losses following a prolonged strike by 900 of it workers since April 26.

The company, which has a workforce of 1,500, is the sole producer in the country of Sony products and normally produces an average of some 4,000 audio and television sets per day.

"We have even had to shift orders from our foreign distributors, such as the United States, to other Sony factories in other countries, like Malaysia," Husin, assistant manager for quality control at the Cibitung plant in Bekasi told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Husin said the precise amount of financial losses that the prolonged strike had inflicted on the company was not available.

"But the first workers strike, which lasted for three and a half days from Feb. 28, caused a total loss of $40 million because the plant could no longer produce at maximum capacity," he said over the phone.

According to him, the factory -- with 600 workers still working -- now is able to produce only an average of between 1,000 and 1,200 items per day.

"We really hope the workers, who are threatening to continue staging a sit-down in our plant's export area, will go back to work or leave the site and go home, pray and take a rest," Husin said.

On April 26, the Sony workers -- most of them in their work uniforms -- gathered outside the United Nations (UN) building in Central Jakarta to convey 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's officials, Gama Juliyanto, for unclear reasons last year.

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

"The company has 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 toilet," he said.

According to Husin, the dispute between the company and the 900 workers began shortly after the management introduced a new working system at the plant in which most of the workers on production lines are required to stand, instead of sit, during working hours.

"We had to introduce that new system for the future of all of us, including the workers, and to face the tough competition in this millennium."

He said the company changed its system on its production lines in stages in connection with the installation of new conveyer belts at the plant.

Moreover, the same scheme has been adopted by many other companies, including Sony's competitors, he added.

"In short, the standing system is merely meant for effectiveness and efficiency and, at the end, can increase workers' productivity," Husin said.

"Could we produce more items using the conveyer belts if we sat on chairs?"

After the first strike, the company held a series of meetings with representatives of the workers to help settle the problems.

"But the meetings always failed and the matter was then taken to the Bekasi Manpower Office and the West Java Regional Committee for the Settlement of Labor Disputes (P4D)," he explained.

The P4D agreed to allow the company to introduce standing at the production lines but ordered the company to, for example, pay the daily wages of workers during the first two days of their February strike and further improve the nutritional content in the food for the workers available at the plant's canteen, Husin said.

"Until today, we keep on asking them to adequately negotiate the dispute. But they apparently have their own mission," Husin said.

"We really hope they're willing to go back to work."

Husin said he had no idea whether the company would fire or punish some of the workers should they finally decided to go back to work.

"I don't know what to say at the moment. But we have a company-union joint agreement (KKB), which stipulates the rules of the games in the company," he said.

"So far, the striking workers are still Sony employees," he added. (bsr)