According to reports, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp’s Changhua County plant faces possible closure after the county government rejected the company’s application for a license renewal. For several days, hundreds of the company’s employees knelt down in front of the plant and the county government building to protest the suspension, holding banners that read: “Let me live,” “Protect our right to work” and calling on Changhua County Commissioner Wei Ming-ku (魏明谷) to step down.
Pollution is the key as to whether the plant should be forced to shut down. If there is no pollution issue, the county government does not have a leg to stand on and should make amends for the plight of the company and its employees. However, if it has indeed caused pollution, upper management should stop hiding behind their employees as they clash with the government. Hoping that public attention will focus on the protests does not solve a pollution problem.
Over the past 51 years, has the company’s Changhua plant caused any air pollution? Has it damaged the health of local residents? While workers at the plant and their families demand that the government let them live and protect their right to work, are their rights more important than those of Changhua’s 1.3 million residents?
Unless the company can guarantee a pollution-free environment for local residents, it would be impossible to achieve a win-win situation for the workers and residents.
When someone insists on their right to work, it is a legitimate argument, but it can also be an excuse. It all depends on what work they want to protect.
For instance, should any law enforcement officer sympathize with illegal drug manufacturers who, when arrested, claim they have a right to work? If a loan shark is arrested, could gangsters working for the organization protest that they have a right to earn a living? When a fraud ring is broken up, can the money collectors defend their crimes using the same reasons?
What about bodyguards working at underground casinos and employees at factories that produce adulterated cooking oil? Can they demand to keep their jobs on the grounds that they have the right to work and need to make a living?
Where is the legitimacy in such demands?
In Taiwan, a common response from companies to reports of alleged environmental violations is to claim that they are licensed and legal. The bigger the company, the more self-righteous it tends to be and the more likely controversies are to be settled quickly.
It is disappointing that Taiwan cannot do better in terms of curbing industrial pollution.
When it was first claimed that a Formosa Plastics Group plant in Vietnam discharged toxic wastewater into local rivers, causing local fishermen to protest, the company’s initial reaction was indifference. However, when Vietnamese authorities announced that the company would be fined US$500 million, it immediately complied, despite its previous claims of innocence.
Taiwanese, who have constantly suffered from pollution without any hope of solving the problem, must have wondered: Why is it that Vietnam can stop pollution, but Taiwan cannot?
On the other hand, Formosa Plastics, which has been accused of countless pollution-related breaches, but has never faced significant losses as a result, must have also wondered: Why have things always worked so well in Taiwan, but not in Vietnam?
Chang Kuo-tsai is a former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
Translated by Tu Yu-an
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