Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) promised to establish a monument in memory of those who lost their lives helping to build Taipei at a Buddhist and Christian memorial service yesterday.
"We have nationwide memorials for deceased soldiers and policemen every year; however, sporadic deaths of laborers seldom attract the public's attention," Ma said at the memorial held at Taipei City Hall.
"Taiwan is the [world's] 15th largest trading country, eighteenth in GNP and the third in overseas savings, millions of laborers are the primary contributors to Taiwan's economic miracle," Ma said.
"We appeal to hold nationwide memorials every year in order to remember the souls of the dead and to comfort their families, as well as to appeal to employers to take heed of their employees' safety," he added.
Taipei's spring memorial for victims who died from occupational accidents -- the second memorial of its kind -- was jointly held yesterday by the Taipei City government and labor rights groups.
Labor rights groups pointed out that aboriginal and foreign laborers were currently facing the highest risks in the workplace because they work on some of the worst work sites.
Nearly 10 families of deceased Thai laborers joined the services accompanied by a Thai monk. However, families of deceased aboriginal laborers were prevented from attending due to mudslides in Taiwan's mountainous areas.
Family representatives started the services by singing memorial songs to express their pain and wishes. "We appeal to the public to pay attention to public safety, we hope such tragedy will never again beset others," they said.
Surrounding the area where the ceremony took place were large walls with portraits of victims of work accidents and 3,294 scraps of yellow paper with the victim's names written on them -- a common Buddhist prayer rite.
"We went to great lengths to find these 3,294 deceased people's names," said Ku Yu-ling (
"We found their names one by one among high dusty archives in the storehouse of the Bureau of Labor Insurance (BLI)," Ku said.
"Although there have been a great number of occupational victims, the sporadic nature of these accidents has diminished their impact on society," Ku said.
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