Four Filipino laborers who were beaten at the Formosa Plastics Group (FPG) factory in Mailiao Township (麥寮) in Yunlin County joined Labor rights groups in front of the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) yesterday, protesting that the CLA had not yet investigated the case and was ignoring their human rights.
According to Chinese Federation of Labor representative Wang Ying-ta (汪英達), a strike by Filipino laborers occurred on July 14 and 15 when FPG tried to pressure the workers into signing an agreement legalizing unlawful deductions from their salaries, including an additional fee for entering Taiwan, a broker's fee and a fee for their Filipino agents.
The FPG called the strike illegal and on Aug. 2, four Filipino workers were beaten and then forcibly repatriated along with fourteen others, Wang said.
PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FONG, TAIPEI TIMES
FPG denied the beating allegations and said that the workers' wounds and bruises had resulted from a physical struggle that occurred when they refused to be sent back.
Wang said that up until now the findings of the CLA's investigation into the incident had not yet been made public.
Filipino worker Gil Lebria broke down when he spoke of the day he was beaten. Lebria said he was zapped with a stun gun (an electric shock weapon) and was still unconscious when he was put on the plane to be sent home.
"They [FPG employers] tried to have us sign blank contracts, and we wouldn't do it," Lebria said. "I have returned to Taiwan to seek justice for my fellow workers who are still here and also for those who were sent back."
Groups such as the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and the Taiwan International Workers' Association chanted slogans such as "Ugly Formosa, ugly policies!" and asked the CLA to uphold the human and labor rights of migrant workers in Taiwan.
While no CLA officials came out to meet the protesters yesterday, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported that the council will seek Yunlin County Government's help in looking into the case of the laborers.
Lebria said that he hoped that an impartial investigation into the conditions of migrant workers at the FPG factory would be carried out and that illegal deductions form their salaries should be annulled.
Another Filipino worker at the protest, Clariza Deleb, who works at the Hope Worker Center in Chungli, said that she had never received her salary directly from her employer.
"My employer gives the money to my broker, and each month there's a broker's fee of NT$7,500 deducted from my pay. I am a single mother. I don't even have enough money to send back to my child," Deleb said, with tears in her eyes.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
RSS