Huapan Administration Consultant Co, which provoked the riot by foreign workers on the Kaohsiung mass rapid transit project asked for almost NT$20 million in damages from 14 Thai workers.
According to Council for Labor Affairs officials, "Huapan itself is at fault here, and has already been heavily fined by the council. By trying to sue the Thai laborers, they are really confusing cause and effect."
The labor riots in Kaohsiung exposed serious corruption. They were one of last year's major political incidents and may have been the main reason behind the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) defeat in the three-in-one local government elections in early December. However, the issue of foreign laborers' right to change jobs has been ignored by both the media and society at large.
More than two weeks ago, the US State Department published its human rights report for last year. The rights of foreign laborers were the source of four instances in which Taiwan violated human rights. The report described the violent protests by Thai laborers in Kaohsiung in particular detail, stressing that the incident was the result of laborers being mistreated to the point where it became unacceptable.
The report also recounted several situations where the rights of foreign workers in Taiwan were being violated. The other two accusations dealt with violence and prejudice against women and human trafficking, issues also mostly affecting the new group of immigrants to Taiwan.
Based on the US human-rights report, it seems that despite the DPP's claim that they are building a state based on human rights, there are serious shortcomings in human rights guarantees for disadvantaged groups in society. It seems that Huapan has not made any reflections on its oppression and mistreatment of foreign labor. Instead, it has grossly overstated its losses and demanded that the workers pay damages. It seems that privileged groups in Taiwan have fundamental systemic protection for their oppression of the disadvantaged.
When I compiled the publication Social Issues in Taiwan 2005, Chi Chun-chieh (
In short, the fundamental problem of disadvantaged groups is that the privileged groups have problems. The privileged groups' control over and exploitation of the disadvantaged groups are the key source to social problems.
The Public Welfare Trust and Ethnic Harmony Fund was recently approved by the Ministry of the Interior and has now officially come into operation. It will incorporate and support forces in civil society in order to promote ethnic harmony. This public welfare fund originated with a Taiwanese entrepreneur living in the US, David Sun (孫大衛), the owner of Kingston Technology.
After seeing the social unrest triggered by the presidential election in 2004 and as a reflection of the ethnic conflict during the election campaign and in particular the more serious ethnic conflict revealed by the clashes after the election, Sun generously donated a large sum of money that paid for the ballot recount following the election. The remaining sum was used to set up the ethnic harmony fund.
The first meeting of the fund's advisory committee determined the fundamental principles for promoting ethnic harmony. In principle, it would be impossible for the fund to reform the overall unequal relationship between privileged and disadvantaged ethnic groups, nor is it very likely that it would be able to directly eliminate all preconceived ideas and prejudice between ethnic groups.
The fund will, however, work hard to initiate various concrete programs to promote ethnic harmony, and it will also attempt to reveal and analyze the crux of ethnic problems and offer social criticism. In short, the members of the advisory committee believe that the ethnic problem mainly rests with the privileged ethnic groups, ie, mainstream society. Educating mainstream society is an important part of promoting ethnic harmony.
When it comes to concrete programs, the Ethnic Harmony Fund will, on the one hand, be pro-active, while on the other it will publicly solicit programs and activities to promote ethnic harmony. Our pro-active planning will include commissioning an annual report on ethnic relations, studying the human rights of disadvantaged ethnic groups, supervising and reviewing incidents involving ethnic conflict or prejudice, keeping an annual record of ethnic issues, and analyzing and reviewing ethnic relations. The fund is now soliciting programs and activities promoting ethnic harmony.
When we talk about ethnic relations, we must realize that there is much room for improvement, be it structurally and systemically or in the attitudes and recognition of the general public and political leaders. Civil society should be active in exposing, criticizing and improving issues, while the government should implement its ideal of a human rights-oriented nation.
Chiu Hei-yuan is chairman of the Public Welfare Trust and Ethnic Harmony Fund advisory committee.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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