In a show of solidarity between Taiwanese labor unions and their counterparts in South Korea, scores of protesters yesterday held a rally in Taipei, calling on Taiwan’s E Ink Holdings (EIH) to revoke its decision to shut down two factories owned by Hydis Technologies — an EIH subsidiary in South Korea.
Dressed in traditional Korean white robes, six representatives from the Hydis employees’ union led a procession toward the Yeung Foong Yu (YFY Group) offices — of which EIH is an affiliate — while more than 150 Taiwanese workers and union activists followed behind.
In a gesture symbolizing anger and despair, the six representatives knelt down and touched their foreheads to the ground for every three steps they took, acting in unison to the beat of a gong.
Photo: CNA
The South Koreans said the shutdowns would cost nearly 800 workers their jobs — including more than 350 Hydis employees as well as workers from Hydis’ client companies.
Founded in 2001 as a spinoff of troubled Hyundai Electronics, Hydis was acquired by China’s BOE technology in 2003. The company later filed for court receivership in 2006 after BOE executives were accused of leaking technology to China.
Although YFY Group promised to maintain the company’s operations in South Korea when it acquired Hydis in 2008, more than 600 employees have been laid off in the past few years, the activists said.
In a written statement issued by the Hydis employees’ union, the South Korean activists accused EIH of following in the footsteps of their former Chinese parent company.
The union representatives described the recent shutdowns as an “eat-and-run scam,” saying that EIH stopped investing in the South Korean production lines after it obtained Hydis’ technologies in Fringe Field Switching (FFS) – a key technology in the LCD electronics industry.
They said that Hydis saw profits of more than NT$2.8 billion (US$88.89 million) last year, adding that it was against South Korean labor regulations for a profitable company to implement a mass layoff of its employees.
Former manager at Hydis’ production section and union representative Koh Woo-jung said only 10 to 15 employees remained at their posts after the mass layoffs, most of them in postions related to the patented technologies.
“This is the first instance in South Korea in which owners of a company instigated a mass layoff of employees even though it was making profits,” labor activist Eom Miya said through an interpreter. “We traveled across the seas to Taiwan because of our belief that there are no national boundaries when it comes to the protection of workers’ rights.”
Hydis employees’ union leader Woo Boo-ki, who has more than 20 years of experience as a production line worker, said that severance packages were of no use to former employees, who are interested in retaining steady jobs.
Taiwan Association for Human Rights director Yen Szu-yu (顏思妤) said that EIH should follow through on its 2008 promises to allow Hydis to maintain ownership of the patents and manage the subsidiary adequately.
Several Taiwanese labor groups and unions voiced their support for the South Korean workers, including members of the Former Freeway Toll Collectors’ Self-Help Organization, the Shin Hai Gas Corp Employees’ Union and the the Taoyuan Confederation of Labor Unions.
In related news, laid-off freeway toll collectors and National Alliance for Workers of Closed Factories members yesterday protested over unresolved issues regarding the laid-off workers’ severance package and compensation for labor pensions, calling the government a Nian (年獸) a mythical beast that is said to attack people over the Lunar New Year holiday.
The dispute with the laid-off toll collectors has entered its 14th month, encompassing the rout of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) in the nine-in-one elections in November last year and the replacements of the premier and the minister of transportation and communications, “but the government has still failed to offer any substantial solution to the dispute,” the group said.
“We are calling on Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國), who was the minister of transportation and communications when the toll booths were replaced by the eTag freeway system, run by the Far Eastern Group under a build, operate and transfer [BOT] model, to come out and face up to the predicament of laid-off toll collectors enduring their second Lunar New Year out of work without any of their problems resolved,” organization member Kuo Kuan-chun (郭冠均) said.
The group set off firecrackers and burned a papermade Nian with photographs of the premier and the former and current ministers if transport and communications on it, claiming the act as symbolic of people driving away a government monster that formed by the exploitation of workers with contract-based employment and BOT contracts that hurt labor rights.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and