A labor union formed by factory workers from Taiwan, Vietnam, and Thailand has won compensation from a factory in Taoyuan City after decades of illegal practices.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00It's a labor protest in three languages.
00:06The multinational workforce of the Datong Dyeing and Finishing Company in Taoyuan says
00:10its employer has broken the law for decades.
00:13And with the textile company preparing to close, this is their last shot at some kind
00:17of restitution.
00:21Senior Taiwanese workers say the company stopped paying into their retirement funds in 2005.
00:26From that year, anyone who'd been on for at least 25 years was forced into half-year
00:30contracts that cut their pay by 30 percent and took away all but a week of annual leave.
00:35I worked at the company for 47 years.
00:38When I worked there until 1994, we were asked to change our retirement funds.
00:42They told us to get a new one.
00:44We had to choose a new one.
00:46Someone chose the old one, so we were fired.
00:50The legality of this practice is still in question.
00:53But it wasn't just local workers.
00:55The factory also began hiring migrant workers from Vietnam and Thailand.
00:59Together with their Taiwanese counterparts, they faced unpaid overtime and mandatory unpaid
01:04leave.
01:05For years, none of the workers said anything.
01:07Even those who may have known their rights were being violated kept their heads down
01:10to avoid losing their jobs.
01:12But rumors the factory was closing down changed everything overnight.
01:16The migrant workers were especially panicked, as they would now have to repay hefty fees
01:20to the middlemen who got them their positions.
01:23They were worried that we wouldn't be able to find a job.
01:27If we could find a job, how much would it be?
01:31It would be 80,000, 90,000 or 100,000.
01:35That's too much.
01:38Then in July, something unusual happened.
01:41Workers from Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand who might otherwise have had conflicting interests
01:45banded together and formed a union.
01:49If migrant workers take away our pay, our pay will go down.
01:54We all know that in the shipyard, people's pay is cheap.
01:57You have to work overtime to keep your pay.
02:00If my pay goes down, does that mean my pay will go down as well?
02:04So there will be some...
02:07should I say harmony?
02:08Or should I say a sense of solidarity?
02:12And it wasn't just this barrier that workers overcame.
02:15Many of the workers don't speak each other's languages.
02:17But everyone understood that once the factory closed,
02:20it would be too late to claim money they felt they were owed.
02:24After several months of negotiation, they got big concessions from the company.
02:28Payment for overtime owed and unused annual leave
02:31and severance of up to two months with an additional lump sum compensation.
02:35Migrant workers also got an offer of either a plane ticket home
02:38or money for lodging as they searched for a new job.
02:41Labor organizers say this shows the importance of solidarity
02:44between Taiwanese and overseas workers.
03:03They see a model here for successfully breaking through national and linguistic barriers
03:07and holding companies that break the law to account,
03:10furthering the welfare of everyone involved.
03:13Patrick Chen and John Van Triest for Taiwan Plus.