More than 1,300 people clashed with security guards at an Indonesian shoe factory which supplies sportswear giants Adidas and Mizuno, police said yesterday, a few months after they were sacked for striking over better pay.
The workers were laid off in July after walking out over demands for back pay following a hike in the minimum wage at the start of this year.
Confirming the clashes during a rally at which the former workers were calling to be reinstated, Wahyu Widodo, police chief of Tangerang, said police were “helping mediate” between protesters and the owners of the Panarub Dwikarya factory.
Indonesia is an increasingly popular destination for major manufacturing companies, lured by cheap labor, but the 240 million-strong nation has witnessed frequent bouts of labor unrest as workers demand better pay and employment rights.
The protest in Tangerang, about 40km west of Jakarta, turned violent after security guards hosed down angry former employees with dirty water, protesters said.
“The workers want to be hired back, their children’s education is depending on it, and we want the company to sit together with us and work on an agreement,” said Ernawati, from the Independent Labor Union Alliance, which took part in the rally.
Adidas issued a statement after the July strike urging the factory — which the German company calls an “overflow” facility for its local supplier — to rehire the workers and pay the wages owed.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS