China has ordered owners of a huge Taiwan-backed shoe factory to address striking workers’ grievances about unpaid social security, an official said yesterday.
Thousands of employees at a factory owned by Yue Yuen Industrial (Holdings) Ltd (裕元工業), which calls itself the world’s largest branded footwear maker, in Dongguan City have been on strike since Monday last week, although some have returned to work, according to a labor rights group.
The Chinese Communist Party fears an independent labor movement could threaten its grip on power, so it only allows one government-linked trade union.
However, activists say government officials have been more sympathetic to individual grievances against factories, especially those funded by foreign companies or investors from Hong Kong or Taiwan. Yue Yuen is a company owned by a Taiwanese family.
A Chinese Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security official said the government was aware of the Yue Yuen issue and Dongguan officials had ordered the company to rectify the situation.
“According to our preliminary investigation, the Dongguan Yue Yuen shoe factory really has the problem of not strictly submitting social security payments,” ministry spokesman Li Zhong (李忠) told a news conference in Beijing, according to a transcript posted online.
“The Dongguan City social security bureau... has ordered the enterprise to carry out rectification in accordance with the law by April 25,” he said, adding the ministry would seek to protect the legal rights of workers.
ACTIVIST FREED
Meanwhile, a Chinese labor activist has been freed after being detained for more than two days by security agents whom he says tried to convince him not to make contact with workers involved in the Yue Yuen labor strike.
Zhang Zhiru’s (張治儒) brief detention underscores nervousness among officials about the strike. A colleague of Zhang’s at the Shenzhen Chunfeng Labor Dispute Service Center, which he runs, was detained separately on Tuesday and has not been released, Zhang said by telephone yesterday.
Labor activists say the strike is one of China’s biggest since market reforms started in the late 1970s. It is already starting to have ripple effects on businesses.
Zhang had been working with other activists and lawyers to help workers at Yue Yuen organize and press their demands regarding social insurance payments. He visited the Dongguan site on Monday after an attempt last week was thwarted by security agents.
Speaking from the southern city of Shenzhen, next to Dongguan, Zhang said domestic security agents summoned him to a meeting on Tuesday and asked him to promise he would not make contact with the workers.
He refused and was taken to what the agents said was a “vacation area” in the suburbs of nearby Guangzhou, where they confiscated his mobile phone, confined him to a room and barred him from making outside contact, he said.
‘FUN TRIP’
They tried to convince him to write a statement that he was “safe and on a trip for fun with friends,” but he refused. He was allowed a telephone call to his wife on Wednesday afternoon.
Late on Thursday morning, he was driven back to Shenzhen, where he lives, and released. Zhang said he was again told not to make contact with the striking workers.
“They said this would be going against the work of the government,” which he was told was trying to facilitate an arrangement to end the strike.
“But, definitely, if the workers have a need or if they have some questions and come to us we will still give them opinions and suggestions, telling them how they can better protect their interests,” Zhang said.
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS