The recruiters who filed lawsuits against 14 Thai laborers that participated in a riot last year dropped the amount of compensation they were seeking from NT$19.67 million (US$596,060) to NT$1 each yesterday, after criticism from officials and civic groups.
Labor rights activists yesterday called the lawsuits filed by the recruiters against the Thai laborers as "absurd" and an "embarrassment to Taiwan's international reputation." They also questioned the legitimacy of the lawsuit.
Huapan Co, which was appointed by the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) to supervise the laborers, filed a civil lawsuit against the workers last month, asking for compensation for vandalism caused by the workers during riots on Aug. 21 last year.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES
The riot took place at a five-story dormitory in Kaohsiung where 300 laborers rioted over poor treatment at the hands of Huapan Co, setting fire to offices and cars, breaking windows and hurling rocks at police.
The aftermath of the riot unearthed a massive KRTC scandal in which several government officials were found to have been peddling influence in the public bidding for contracts related to the project.
Bruce Liao (廖元豪), a labor rights promoter and law professor at National Chengchi University, said that Huapan had previously promised on paper to refrain from seeking damages caused by the Thai workers during the riots.
However, by filing a lawsuit now, Huapan was breaking its promise, Liao said.
In addition, the riots were caused by mistreatment and should be regarded as legitimate self-defense, he said.
Huapan had no evidence of what the 14 laborers did during the riots and whether they had contributed to the damage, he said.
Liao also questioned the motives behind the lawsuit.
"Huapan knows that there is no way for these laborers to pay the original compensation," he said. "Nothing like this has happened in the past because recruiters have the power to deport their workers as a punishment."
If Huapan really believes that the laborers should be held responsible for the riots and that the company did not abuse the workers in any way, they would not need to adjust the amount of compensation now, Liao said.
"The law will prove whether they [Huapan] are innocent or not. So why are they afraid?" he added.
Liao said that lowering the total compensation figure to only NT$14 was probably a way to quell public dissent and offer a means by which the laborers would pay the amount to avoid further trouble.
However, if the workers paid, they would fall into Huapan's trap, Liao said.
He said that district attorneys had not made clear Huapan's responsibility for the riots last year, yet the company was suing workers.
Although several government officials were removed from their posts in the wake of the KRTC scandal, there is still a feeling that the law does not pay enough attention to the problem of human rights.
In other incidents of labor rights violations, such as one in Yunlin by Formosa Plastics Group last year in which Filipino workers protested against their recruiters, no results were seen at all because no politics was involved, Liao said.
"What we [civic groups and labor rights activists] really want is not just punishment for the recruiters. We want the rights of laborers to be properly protected," he said.
Wong Ying-dah (汪英達), labor rights activist and policy director of the Chinese Federation of Labor, said that the whole situation was absurd.
Whether such a lawsuit was legitimate was up to district attorneys to decide, Wong said, but they had to bear in mind that if they allow Huapan to win the case, it would be a shattering blow to Taiwan's international reputation and an embarrassment to human-rights development around the country.
Wang Ching-shen (王進勝), a lawyer representing Huapan, said that even if the Thai laborers were fighting for their rights, burning and vandalizing property was not the legal way to do it.
Local media reports said that Huapan wanted to prove that they did not abuse the Thai laborers and to restore their reputation.
The Thai laborers are currently represented by two attorneys at the Hsu Ming-de Law Firm in Kaohsiung. The attorneys were unavailable for comment.
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