Taiwan enters the twenty-first century as a world leader in high-tech goods, but the island is coming to be known for another, less coveted, export: labor rights abuses. The deplorable practices of some Taiwanese industrialists are drawing increasing attention from activists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and foreign media. The Boston Globe last month spoke with Chinese workers who accused their Taiwanese bosses of ignoring safety regulations, using dilapidated and dangerous machinery, and paying employees starvation wages that forced them to work long overtime hours in order to make ends meet. A Chinese lawyer who represents workers in grievance cases against their employers told the paper that the majority of his cases involved Taiwanese companies. Taiwanese employers, the lawyer said, think that workers aren't people.
Similar attitudes prevail among Taiwanese bosses in other parts of the world. In Nicaragua, foremen at the Taiwanese-owned Chentex blue jeans factory routinely hurl verbal abuse at workers, berating them as stupid, useless work animals.
Employees at the factory, which has come under harsh attack in the past year from labor rights activists around the globe, are forced to work 12-hour days six or seven days a week. They earn a paltry US$0.20 for every US$20 to US$30 pair of jeans they sew, according to the New York-based National Labor Committee (NLC). When employees at the Chentex factory asked for a US$0.08 hourly wage increase last year, management fired the workers' union leadership along with hundreds of others at the factory. The company then hired goons and brought in police to terrorize workers, and formed a yellow company union. It also threatened to move the factory out of Nicaragua and urge all other Taiwanese investors to leave the country as well, a frightful scenario for a nation in which nearly 20,000 jobs depend on Taiwanese investment. The government of Nicaragua deserves much of the blame for making the nation's workers so vulnerable to the type of abuse and exploitation that firms such as Chentex have dished out. The official minimum wage in Nicaragua meets just one-third of the cost of living, and the government's implementation of the one-size-fits-all neoliberal policies of the IMF and World Bank have resulted in huge cuts in social spending and unemployment rates as high as 60 percent. But even though workers in nations such as Nicaragua will have to take the lead in winning better protections from their governments, the people of Taiwan have an interest in reining in Taiwanese firms that mistreat employees overseas, since failure to do so will lead to international opprobrium. Taiwan would do well to consider that NGOs such as the NLC and San Francisco-based Global Exchange have helped make sweatshops one of the hottest new causes among young activists in the West, and mainstream human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have begun looking at ways to integrate labor rights into the traditional pantheon of human rights. These groups' expanded human rights agenda finds justification in the International Bill of Human Rights, a document whose principles President Chen has vowed to incorporate into Taiwan's human rights code. Article 23 of the rights charter states that every worker has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity.
It also grants workers the right to form and to join trade unions. Article 24, meanwhile, establishes workers' right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours.
President Chen has an opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to human rights by taking steps to tackle the problem of labor rights abuses by Taiwanese firms abroad.
The president can ensure that his proposed human rights commission produces labor rights guidelines that MOFA will make part of its regulatory framework governing investments in countries with diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
In addition, he can direct MOFA to work with NGOs to identify Taiwanese firms that are involved in labor rights disputes overseas.
Finally, the president can appoint an independent task force to investigate Taiwanese diplomats' collusion with business people who have interests abroad.
Mere suggestion of measures such as these will raise the hackles of business, causing the government to approach the issue of overseas labor rights abuses with considerable trepidation. But activists are eagerly taking up the cause of labor rights in response to corporate-driven globalization, and their ability to shape public opinion should not be underestimated.
If Taiwan gains a reputation around the world for being a purveyor of sweatshops, it could find itself having to deal with a public relations disaster that makes the island's standing in the international community even more precarious than it already is.
Rick Mercier writes on social issues for publications in North America and Asia.
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