After four months of struggle and weeks of intense negotiations, workers and management at Toshiba Consumer Products Indonesia reached a settlement: 682 workers will be reinstated, but 15 local union leaders will not get their jobs back.

	IMF Assistant General Secretary Hiroshi Kamada addresses striking Toshiba workers in Indonesia. Photo courtesy of IMF

Toshiba CPI, which manufactures plasma TVs for export, locked out and fired the workers — members of the Federasi Serikat Pekerja Metal Indonesia (FSPMI), an affiliate of the International Metalworkers’ Federation — after the workers went on strike on April 16, 2009, in support of a collective bargaining dispute. Most were women who had worked for the company since its establishment 12 years ago. In response to the strike, Toshiba canceled the workers’ health insurance and stopped wage payments, measures that led to severe hardship and suffering. One union member died for lack of medical treatment.

The Manpower Ministry ordered Toshiba to immediately reinstate the workers with full wages, but the company not only refused to do so, but also filed criminal charges and a $1.6 million lawsuit against the union leaders as punishment for the strike, claiming loss of production and business (these charges, as well as countercharges by the union, have been dropped). At its May 2009 Congress, the IMF passed a resolution in full support of FSPMI and the Toshiba workers, condemning the company’s total disregard for worker rights. Contributions to a strike fund set up by the IMF enabled FSPMI to offer three hot meals a day to striking workers and their families and to pay some of their medical bills.

After initial attempts by the IMF and its affiliates to engage the management of the parent company failed, a breakthrough was eventually achieved when a delegation from IMF-Japan Council, DENKI-RENGO (the Japanese Electrical, Electronic, and Information Union), and Toshiba Japan union arrived in Jakarta on July 23 and persuaded management to reconvene negotiations in good faith with the union. On August 23, Toshiba and FSPMI management signed a memorandum of understanding. Under the MOU:

• The 682 workers will be unconditionally reinstated immediately.
• The 15 FSPMI leaders will resign and will be adequately compensated.
• A new local union committee will be elected and entrusted with the task of reconvening collective bargaining for a new collective agreement.

The MOU stipulates that FSPMI Chairman and IMF Executive Committee member Aghni Dhamanyanti, FSPMI Senior Vice President Vonny Diananto, and 13 other union leaders at the plant will lose their jobs. Both Dhamanyanti and Diananto will continue as officers of FSPMI, however, and will assist the new union leaders.

Diananto said that after working at Toshiba CPI for more than 12 years he was compelled by circumstances to sacrifice his job for the sake of other workers who were dismissed. ”The 15 leaders have resigned from the company and they will be paid adequate compensation,” he said. “Most important is that the union status in this company is restored. If we had prolonged this struggle, the company could have replaced the dismissed workers with contract workers because the Labor Court granted such decision in favor of the company.”