Following Minister of Labor Cheng Hsiung-wen’s (陳雄文) announcement that the ministry would help the Hualon Self-Help Organization pay to appeal a court decision on the allocation of money from the auction of Hualon’s factory in Dayuan Township (大園), Taoyuan County, the group urged the ministry to be more active in helping the workers.
The group originally planned to demonstrate outside the Ministry of Labor in Taipei yesterday morning, but the self-help organization later decided to cancel after the minister announced that the ministry would provide NT$2 million (US$66,600) to help pay for the appeal.
However, the group said that the ministry should do more.
“If the furthest that the ministry will go is to provide funds that send the workers and their lawyers into an unfair legal battle, it will never solve workers’ problems,” the Hualon Self-Help Organization said in a statement released yesterday morning. “It should work to provide for the workers, instead of having the workers and their lawyers shoulder all the responsibility.”
Responding to Chen’s remarks that the group’s approach would not work, the organization urged Chen to look into the history of the dispute, saying the government, especially the agencies dealing with labor issues, had failed to do their jobs and therefore the government should take responsibility.
The self-help organization consists of retired Hualon Group employees who are owed pensions after the group declared bankruptcy and said that it had no more cash, even though that the law requires it to deposit a certain amount of money into an account reserved for pension funds.
After the land on which Hualon’s factory stood was sold for NT$2.43 billion, most of the money was given to banks and other creditors, while each of the former employees who are owed on average about NT$1 million are likely to get little more than NT$2,000.
Although members of the self-help organization can appeal the decision, they must first pay an appeal fee of NT$2 million.
Responding to the self-help organization’s criticism, Chen said that here would be no target even if the ministry acted on behalf of the workers, since Hualon Group no longer exists.
“Although we will pay the appeal fee for the former employees, I’m not too optimistic about the outcome, since the court doesn’t have much room to change its decision as far as the law is concerned,” Chen said. “However, the ministry will try to negotiate with the banks and other creditors to see if they would be willing to give some of their payments to former Hualon Group employees.”
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