Labor unions yesterday protested in front of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF,
The firm, Continental Carbon Company, is based in Houston, Texas, and is part of Koo's global business network, which includes telecommunications, hotels, biotechnology, chemicals, insurance, and banking.
Yesterday's event was staged to coincide with the first anniversary of what the US employees involved have termed a "lockout" of workers by Continental Carbon at one of its plants in Ponca City, Oklahoma.
The company allegedly dismissed more than 80 workers a year ago and breached an agreement with the employees' union to continue to provide health insurance for former employees for 18 months after they leave the company.
It did so, the US employees say, because they refused to accept cuts in wages and benefits of between US$10,000 and US$15,000 per year when renewing their contracts last year.
According to a report by the US-based Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Workers International Union (PACE), after the lockout, the 86 workers and their families were thrown into financial hardship and denied health insurance.
Organized by the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions (TCTU,
Representatives of the workers and leaders of PACE came to Taiwan in March for a joint demonstration in front of the Taiwan Cement building. Taiwan Cement and Taiwan Synthetic Rubber Corporation are Koo's Group-owned companies that bought Continental Carbon in 1995.
"We had protests in Taiwan involving US union leaders in March," said Robert Kuo (
"Unfortunately, no one from the Koo family has ever responded. That is why we chose to approach the head of the Koo's Group and president of the SEF, in the hopes of getting some positive feedback from the group."
The protesters planned yesterday to present Koo with a letter detailing alleged malpractice on the part of the management of Continental Carbon and a giant styrofoam key with the words "anti-lockout" on the front.
In fact, Koo was out of the country and an SEF department head, Lin Jau-tsan (
He refused, however, to accept the letter or the key from the protesters, saying, "We [the foundation] are unfamiliar with the background of the dispute and have no authority over the matter," he said.
"The foundation really has nothing to do with it. They are ringing the wrong bell," Lin told the Taipei Times.
Yesterday's protest was also attended by environmental activists, who protested about Continental Carbon's alleged illegal discharge of waste-water in the local Ponca City community and the failure to take appropriate measures to protect workers from potentially carcinogenic carbon black oil.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
RSS