Koo's Group urged to end dispute

Labor unions yesterday protested in front of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF, 海基會), demanding that its president, Koo Chen?fu (辜振甫), end a lockout at a subsidiary in the US of the Koo's Group, of which he is the head.

The firm, Continental Carbon Company, is based in Houston, Texas, and is part of Koo's global business network, which includes telecommunications, hotels, biotechnology, chemicals, insurance, and banking.

Yesterday's event was staged to coincide with the first anniversary of what the US employees involved have termed a "lockout" of workers by Continental Carbon at one of its plants in Ponca City, Oklahoma.

The company allegedly dismissed more than 80 workers a year ago and breached an agreement with the employees' union to continue to provide health insurance for former employees for 18 months after they leave the company.

It did so, the US employees say, because they refused to accept cuts in wages and benefits of between US$10,000 and US$15,000 per year when renewing their contracts last year.

According to a report by the US-based Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Workers International Union (PACE), after the lockout, the 86 workers and their families were thrown into financial hardship and denied health insurance.

Organized by the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions (TCTU, 全國產業總工會), the Taiwan protest was organized to show solidarity with the 86 "locked out" American workers, who are to stage a demonstration of their own today in Ponca which will be led by the mayor of Ponca, Tom Leonard.

Representatives of the workers and leaders of PACE came to Taiwan in March for a joint demonstration in front of the Taiwan Cement building. Taiwan Cement and Taiwan Synthetic Rubber Corporation are Koo's Group-owned companies that bought Continental Carbon in 1995.

"We had protests in Taiwan involving US union leaders in March," said Robert Kuo (郭國文), general secretary of TCTU.

"Unfortunately, no one from the Koo family has ever responded. That is why we chose to approach the head of the Koo's Group and president of the SEF, in the hopes of getting some positive feedback from the group."

The protesters planned yesterday to present Koo with a letter detailing alleged malpractice on the part of the management of Continental Carbon and a giant styrofoam key with the words "anti-lockout" on the front.

In fact, Koo was out of the country and an SEF department head, Lin Jau-tsan (林昭燦), promised to communicate the protesters' demands to him.

He refused, however, to accept the letter or the key from the protesters, saying, "We [the foundation] are unfamiliar with the background of the dispute and have no authority over the matter," he said.

"The foundation really has nothing to do with it. They are ringing the wrong bell," Lin told the Taipei Times.

Yesterday's protest was also attended by environmental activists, who protested about Continental Carbon's alleged illegal discharge of waste-water in the local Ponca City community and the failure to take appropriate measures to protect workers from potentially carcinogenic carbon black oil.