JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - More than a thousand Reebok workers protested outside the American Embassy in Jakarta Monday over a cut in orders they claimed left 5,400 workers without jobs.
It was the fifth protest this year at the U.S. Embassy staged by workers from the factory in the central Indonesian city of Bandung which makes shoes for Reebok, the world's second largest athletic shoe maker.
"Reebok are killers!" "Reebok are exploiters!" the protesters chanted.
Agus Hariyadi, a protest organizer, said the Massachusetts-based shoemaker had reneged on a promise to keep up shoe orders.
Foreign-based shoe manufacturers employ at least 300,000 workers across the country. Most of the products are for export.
Monday's protesters work at a factory in Bandung run by PT Primarindo Asia Infrastructure, one of several Indonesian companies making shoes for Reebok.
Reebok said in a statement that it recently cut or ended orders to three factories, one in China, one in Thailand and the Bandung factory. Reebok said the Bandung factory had the worst quality and delivery records of any of its plants in Indonesia, and that it was too far from the company's local engineering center.
Reebok said it had encouraged the factory to look for other buyers last September and that the company would assist the workers "to ensure the factory pays affected workers appropriate severence wages in accordance with Indonesian law."
"The decision to terminate a business relationship with a valued business partner is never an easy one," said Reebok, which said it still employs 19,700 Indonesia workers at three factories on the island of Java. "Reebok regrets any hardship this decision may cause to P.T. Primarindo factory workers and their families."
Many U.S. manufacturers have moved their operations to Vietnam and China, seeking to avoid social turmoil that has been part of Indonesia's uneasy transition to democracy following the 1998 fall of ex-dictator Suharto