Representatives of three firms subcontracted to build a new office complex for the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) began a week-long protest in Taipei yesterday, demanding that the project’s US contractor pay them for work already done.
One week after staging a protest at the office’s construction site in Neihu District (內湖), the demonstrators gathered again, shouting slogans calling for payment by US-based Weston Solutions and asking the AIT to help them.
The protesters said Weston Solutions owes more than NT$470 million (US$15.69 million) to three Taiwanese subcontractors.
Photo: CNA
Tu Chung-jen (涂崇仁), a representative of one of the subcontractors, Wei Chuan Arch Contracting Co, said the new round of protests will last until Friday.
“Two AIT officials met with us during the last protest on April 8 and conveyed our concerns to their office,” Tu said.
However, since then, there has been no word from the AIT, he added.
Weston Solutions started to delay or hold back payments more than a year ago and the situation has deteriorated over time, and affects more than 160 workers, Tu said.
A US news report last month said Weston Solutions was in serious financial trouble and had laid off more than 100 employees, Tu said. When Weston’s staff in Taiwan were asked about report, they admitted that the company could not pay the subcontractors what were owed, he said.
The three firms are now refusing to have any contact with Weston Solutions and are seeking assistance from the AIT.
The demonstration will move to the AIT’s current location if it does not offer them help, Tu said.
An AIT spokesman said it was aware of the plans to protest this week, but reiterated that the AIT is not directly involved in the dispute.
“Legally, we’re prohibited from directly engaging” in such matters, spokesman Mark Zimmer said.
However, the AIT is “very concerned about” the issue, he added.
“We still hope that they can work out their differences with Weston,” Zimmer said.
The AIT’s new compound is being built on a 6.5 hectare site on a hillside within walking distance of the Neihu MRT station on the Wenhu line. The site was leased from the government for 99 years.
The compound is scheduled to open in 2015.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods