Two workplace accidents, one of them fatal, took place within an hour of each other in Douliu in Yunlin County, bringing closer scrutiny of the state of workplace safety in Taiwan.
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00:00It was shortly after nine on Thursday morning when Ms. Huang fell into this trash compactor,
00:05killing her. She'd worked for over a decade at this recycling plant in the Yunlin County
00:09town of Doliu. The conveyor belt had gotten stuck, and all she'd done was check to make
00:13sure the machine wasn't broken. By the time the plant's owner realized something was wrong,
00:18it was too late.
00:26In addition to shocked family members, workplace safety inspectors were soon at the scene.
00:43In the same town, barely an hour later, an Indonesian migrant worker was nearly buried
00:48alive at this cement factory. They'd gone down to work in a deep rock pit when a conveyor
00:53belt above that had gotten stuck suddenly started moving again, bringing an avalanche
00:57of stone. Thanks to a safety harness they were wearing, firefighters were able to rescue
01:02this worker, but it was a close call.
01:19Both factories broke an important work safety rule by not shutting off malfunctioning conveyor
01:23belts. They've both been shut down and fined a little over 9,000 U.S. dollars.
01:29But how to stop accidents like this in the first place? It's an especially tough question
01:33where migrant workers are concerned. NGO Global Workers Organization Taiwan says they are
01:39two and a half times more likely to suffer a workplace accident than their Taiwanese
01:43counterparts. And smaller, medium-sized companies are where these accidents are most likely
01:47to happen due to lack of proper procedures.
02:14This and proper safety training as mandated by the government are what this group believes
02:19are the best ways of overcoming Taiwan's work safety problem, a problem these two accidents
02:24have thrown back into public attention.
02:26James Lin and John Van Triest for Taiwan Plus.