Jakarta – Setting fire to a giant cardboard replica of a Reebok shoe, more than a thousand workers from the US-based manufacturer protested outside the American Embassy in Jakarta over a cut in orders they claimed has left 5,400 workers jobless.

It was the fifth protest this year at the US 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 shoemaker. "Reebok are killers!", "Reebok are exploiters!" the protesters chanted yesterday.

Organiser Agus Hariyadi said the Massachusetts-based shoemaker had reneged on a promise to keep up orders. No one at Reebok or its local Indonesian manufacturers was immediately available for comment.

Foreign-based shoe manufacturers employ at least 300,000 workers across the country. Most of the products are for export.

The protesters work at a factory in Bandung run by PT Primarindo Asia Infrastructure, one of several Indonesian companies making shoes for Reebok.

Many US manufacturers have moved their operations to Vietnam and China, seeking to avoid social turmoil which has been part of Indonesia's uneasy transition to democracy following the 1998 fall of former president Suharto.