Textile plant bans smoking

JAKARTA (JP): A foreign textile company, PT Taisho Textile Industries, launched yesterday a no-smoking area at its East Jakarta factory which employs 1,000 workers.

The smoke-free campaign's launching ceremony was co-sponsored by Yayasan Jantung Indonesia (Indonesian Heart Foundation) and was held in conjunction with Health Day which fell yesterday and the Deepawali (Indian holy) day which fell last Sunday.

Several Indian companies hold the majority of shares in Taisho Textile Industries and all the company's executives are Indians.

The company's president, Yashroop Mal Lodha, said after the ceremony that all company employees, including management, would benefit from the smoke-free campaign.

"The workers will be healthier if the factory is free from smoke and their productivity will in turn be raised because fewer workers will be sick," Lodha said.

He estimated the company would save about Rp 10 million (US$4,255) in health costs each month.

Lodha said he had started the trial for no smoking area at his company two years ago.

"We will arrange a labor agreement to ban smoking at the factory," Lodha said.

The executive director of the foundation, Maseno, said the factory was the first to declare a no-smoking area in East Jakarta. He said there were several firms which had declared themselves no-smoking areas in Jakarta and its surrounding areas.

A company director, C. Ramakrishna, said about 40 percent of his employees smoked.

He said he could not take disciplinary actions against those who violated the rules and smoked at his factory. However, he said, the company's management would continuously encourage employees not to smoke at the factory.

He said the company would not discriminate against smokers by providing a smoking area at the factory.

One of the male workers, Asmat, told The Jakarta Post that he was a smoker. He said he had often used certain places such as the lavatory to smoke when he was desperate to smoke.

An executive of the Harapan Kita hospital, Aulia, said that based on his research 40 percent of people who were addicted to cigarettes failed when they tried to quit smoking. (kod)