Yet another employee has committed suicide at a plant in China owned by Taiwanese company Foxconn. The issue has been discussed at length in the media, with some saying that modern production puts too much pressure on workers. Chinese academics blame an unfair society and labor system.
One crucial factor has been missing from the discussions — labor relations. This is a thorny problem in any capitalist system and one that inevitably touches on the right of workers to organize.
Many Taiwanese high-tech companies say that their management systems provide employees with better welfare, in the same way that a patriarch grants favors to the younger generation in a family. This, however, is a matter of charity and runs counter to the rights of workers as equal citizens in a democratic society to freely organize labor unions to represent their interests.
In the past, it was said that applicants for jobs at one of Taiwan’s top 100 companies were asked: “If the conditions offered by the company were far better than what is required by labor legislation, would you still feel that there was a need to join a labor union?”
If the answer was “yes,” so the story goes, the candidate was rejected.
When amending the Teacher’s Act (教師法), the Ministry of Education and certain legislators thought that the conditions enjoyed by university professors were so good that they should be denied the right to form a union.
Employers are still guided by a dated view of management, namely: “What are you complaining about? I gave you the best.”
Foxconn’s management system is a microcosm of Taiwanese society. The firm provides a far better environment than other companies, paying salaries and making social security contributions in accordance with the law. Dormitories, canteens, holidays and entertainment centers are all provided. However superficially impressive, such a patriarchal mentality does not allow labor unions and cannot tolerate “disobedient” employees or external criticism.
This approach to management is not unique to Foxconn. The same situation exists at Young Fast Optoelectronics in Taiwan, where employees were laid off recently after trying to organize a labor union. When the government intervened and asked the company to rehire the fired employees, the firm’s leadership resisted, choosing to spend money on lawsuits instead.
It is also common to see companies organize their own “in-house” labor unions as a way of “taming” employees. Independent worker-organized labor unions do not exist in Chinese factories. The deputy factory director is often the union chairman and is also frequently sent by local government, with no interest in speaking up for the workers.
When employees at Young Fast Optoelectronics organized their 90-strong labor union, the company sent more than 400 other workers to join this young organization in an attempt to control it from within.
Research shows that Taiwanese factories in Vietnam claiming to provide better welfare, higher salaries and better working conditions than their competitors, in full compliance with government regulations, still experience serious strikes. In contrast, one Taiwanese factory in Vietnam paid slightly less than rivals, but its workers never went on strike. Why?
The simple answer is that this company allowed workers to organize labor unions. The election of union cadres followed democratic procedures. Whenever there was a dispute between workers and management, representatives from both sides sat down and talked to resolve problems in a mutually beneficial way. Issues addressed included foremen shouting at workers, unfair compensation and fights among personnel.
Taiwan’s high-tech companies are the product of a special type of labor system that has its roots firmly in the past. They provide welfare with a patriarchal mentality, but lower wages, suppress workers’ right of association and ask for preferential rental taxes to accumulate company capital.
Such policies create an environment which denies Taiwanese workers basic human rights.
The decision by so many Foxconn employees to commit suicide is not merely an issue of personal psychological problems. Neither hiring monks to bring benediction to the factory nor bringing in 2,000 mental-health counselors will solve the conflict between workers and the management.
The only solution to this dilemma is to allow dialogue on an equal footing between workers and management through the establishment of labor unions.
Wang Hong-zen is president of the Graduate Institute of Sociology at National Sun Yat-sen University.
TRANSLATED BY WU TAIJING
Wherever one looks, the United States is ceding ground to China. From foreign aid to foreign trade, and from reorganizations to organizational guidance, the Trump administration has embarked on a stunning effort to hobble itself in grappling with what his own secretary of state calls “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” The problems start at the Department of State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted that “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the world has returned to multipolarity, with “multi-great powers in different parts of the
President William Lai (賴清德) recently attended an event in Taipei marking the end of World War II in Europe, emphasizing in his speech: “Using force to invade another country is an unjust act and will ultimately fail.” In just a few words, he captured the core values of the postwar international order and reminded us again: History is not just for reflection, but serves as a warning for the present. From a broad historical perspective, his statement carries weight. For centuries, international relations operated under the law of the jungle — where the strong dominated and the weak were constrained. That
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS