I take a tour of the House of Sampoerna, one of Indonesia’s cigarette manufacturers. My guide is good, she tells me about the history of the company and even dares talking a little about the conditions of the workers – all women because “men don’t work fast enough” – as we look down at the factory floor.
The women roll by hand, using a simple mechanical device; cutting and packing is also done by hand. Wearing a red hat means you roll, a black that you cut, and a yellow that you pack. One roller makes over 300 cigarettes an hour. 2000 people work here.
I’m not allowed to take pictures of the factory floor “to protect the privacy of the workers”. Conveniently, that also means there will be no photos of women sitting on the cheapest possible plastic stools, crammed together in a hot room making the same hand movements 300 times every hour.
A big sign on the wall flashes a proud zero. I’m told that’s the number of workers who are currently at the clinic. I am not told if this means everyone is fine and healthy or if it means the women are just working through their pain. They get paid per cigarette they roll.
At the museum shop I am hoping to buy a pack of these hand rolled beauties and try them out. But no, no, no! They don’t sell cigarettes at the shop because that might encourage people to smoke.
My guide has a difficult time saying this with a straight face, and when I start giggling so does she. I tell her this sounds like a typical Philip Morris move, and we then laugh for a good while at the absolute hypocrisy of running a factory that produces 4 million cigarettes per day, and at the same time pretending you don’t want people to smoke.
She tells me that they indeed used to sell cigarettes at the gift shop, but since Philip Morris bought the company a few years ago they stopped.
Corporate conglomerates profiting off addicts’ deaths has me smile inside as I leave. Because cigarettes don’t kill people; people smoking cigarettes kill people.
