A group of Filipino and Thai workers delegates shook hands and hugged one another in Mailiao yesterday, at a reconciliation session called to ease tensions following the worst foreign labor riot in Taiwan history.
Ritthie Thepwong, a Thai workers' delegate, formally apologized on behalf of the Thai workers. "I'm sorry for the incident that occurred," he said, "this will never happen again."
Eliot S. Cojuangco, a labor representative from the Manila Economic and Trade Office (MECO), accepted the apology and said he should send a warm greeting to the other Thai workers. "We are brothers in Asia so we should help each other as brothers." Cojuangco said Filipinos would follow the rules and regulations of Taiwan.
The meeting followed 48 hours of sporadic violence between the two groups at the Formosa Plastic Group's sixth naphtha cracker site, including an eight-hour long running battle Sunday night, that left 20 people injured.
The tensions were sparked by the alleged beating of three Thai men Sunday afternoon who had ended up on a bus filled with Filipino colleagues after going for a health check-up in Taichung. Following the return of the bus to the Mailiao construction site, fighting erupted between the two ethnic groups, ostensibly over the use of telephones in a dormitory.
Some 200 to 300 workers battled one another Sunday night, armed with bats, iron bars and home-made petrol bombs at the height of the feud. But officials say almost 3000 laborers were eventually involved in the unrest.
Steps are being taken to prevent further conflict between the two sides, but tensions remain.
Officials from Formosa Plastics and Samsung Engineering and Construction Company (one of Formosa's subcontractors at the site), spent several hours yesterday trying to rearrange workers' living quarters to ensure the Filipinos are housed several kilometers away from their Thai colleagues.
But efforts to move Filipinos out of the plant drew complaints from both workers and official Philippine representatives. Some 2,000 Filipinos were bused to the nearby Cheng-an temple (
Due to a lack of space in the temple, however, half were asked to sleep outside on the square in front. They were given corrugated paper to sleep on, with their luggage spread all over the square. "How can we sleep here?" said one Filipino worker yesterday, adding their employer had treated them as second-class citizens. However, as of press time, hundreds of Filipino workers still remained camped outside the temple, refusing to return citing security concerns.
Other workers said yesterday they had heard rumors that Samsung was considering hiring all of its workers from just one country as a way to avoid further racial conflicts. However, Tsuai Hsin-chih, managing director of Samsung Construction ruled out such racial factors in hiring.
At yesterday's reconciliation meeting, Tsuai blamed Sunday night's clashes on drinking problems on both sides. He also said the fighting had been fueled by a rumor that two Thai workers had been killed by Filipinos.
"The Thai workers used mobile phones and two-way radios to call their fellow workers from other factories to join the fight. This made the riot beyond our control," he said.
Some Filipino workers backed up Tsuai's contention that alcohol played a part in the uproar, saying beer was sold around workers' dormitories, even though regulations ban alcohol inside the plant. Lin Chin-tzu (林慶賜), deputy manager of the management department at the complex said a decision had been made to stop selling beer inside the plant for the next few days. But he did not say if the ban would be permanent.
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