The owner of a Pingtung County golf ball factory where a fire last month left 10 people dead and 113 injured yesterday said that it has set up a NT$500 million (US$15.52 million) trust fund for affected employees, and that the families of firefighters killed in the blaze would also receive compensation.
Eight Launch Technologies Co (明揚國際) employees and three firefighters remain hospitalized, a company representative told a news conference on how the company was handling the aftermath of the Sept. 22 incident.
Launch Technologies has set aside NT$20 million in a fund to pay medical expenses related to the fire, and has given NT$300,000 to the families of the 10 people who died, the representative said.
Photo: Luo Hsin-chen, Taipei Times
On Friday, the families of six factory workers who died received five months of the employees’ average monthly salary to help with funeral expenses and 40 months of their average monthly salary as compensation in accordance with the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), the representative said.
They added that although the families of the four deceased firefighters qualify for a state line-of-duty death benefit, the company would also pay compensation to their families.
Minister of the Interior Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) on Sept. 27 said that the four firefighters who died in the blaze would be enshrined at the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei and that their families would each be eligible to claim a death benefit of NT$28 million.
In addition, the company has also set up a NT$500 million trust to compensate the families of the deceased and injured employees.
The families of the deceased firefighters would receive further compensation through a separate fund, the company said.
The company, which has suspended operations due to the incident, also pledged to pay worker wages until the end of this year and would gauge their willingness to work at the factory when it can be reopened.
On Sept. 25, the company was fined NT$2.4 million after the Pingtung County Government determined that the factory had contravened regulations by storing more flammable materials than is permitted.
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