Workers of the microchip, unite!
About two years ago, Mr. Zhang, a 36-year-old engineer in a well-known semiconductor manufacturer in the Southern Taiwan Science Park, got the same idea as Chen-"I really wanted to organize a labor union!" He recalls, "At that time the company laid off nearly 1000 people without any warning, including me, and tried to force everyone who got laid off to sign a voluntary resignation form [thereby excusing the company from various legal obligations]. I was one of the few to resist the threats and inducements, and one of only 10 people to insist that the company give us a certificate of non-voluntary departure."
After being laid off, Zhang quickly found another job, but continued to remain one of the most active members in the "self-help association" organized by himself and other employees laid off from his original company. After protests and negotiations, they won agreement from the company to give laid-off employees various options, one of which was to return to their original jobs. Zhang took this option. "The reason I came back had nothing to do with money. It was to organize a union to put the company on notice: Employees are not just puppets you can treat any way you want!"
However, it was no easy feat to find the legally required 30 people to form the union. "Of course the reasons are obvious-people were afraid the company would hassle them, that it would affect their future prospects. Even I had to stage a 'home revolution,' because my parents were initially opposed, and I had to win them over before I could really go ahead with forming the union without any hesitations."
Although progress in forming the union was harder than he had hoped, Zhang found support outside the company. Starting two years ago, the Labor Rights Association, which helped Zhang with his self-help association, created an online forum and conducted seminars, ultimately finding over 100 people who expressed their willingness to organize an industry-wide union, one of the new forms of organization now permitted by law. However, even these people were very cautious about revealing personal data, and for many months they only knew each other through pseudonyms used in the online forum.
On May 1, 33 founders (including Zhang) from all over Taiwan, working in many different firms and with many different occupations and job titles, finally gathered together. In their first year's work plan, the Taiwan Electronics and Information Industry Trade Union has listed a number of rather grand objectives, including: (1) a comprehensive reappraisal of the loopholes created in labor laws by the "responsibility system" of employment provided for in Article 84-1 of the Labor Standards Act, (2) a reassessment of the criteria used for determining "overwork" (a vital concern for persons seeking compensation when an employee has become seriously ill or died after working long hours), (3) monitoring the government to ensure that it devotes more effort to research into occupational hazards and their prevention, and (4) widespread and in-depth investigations into working hours and rates of pay in the industry.
Kao Wei-kai, a longtime behind-the-scenes labor activist who was elected as a county councilor in Hsinchu two years ago, emphasizes that "the bigger a union is, the more powerful it is." He also stresses that his colleagues have a lot to gain by pressing forward: "There are an estimated 210,000 workers in the science-based industrial parks around Taiwan; if the union can grow steadily to 2000 members, then to 20,000, its voice will carry a lot of weight."
He also suggests that labor not get divided into factions based on job titles and status. "There is little difference between an 'engineer' and a 'technician,' while there is an enormous gap between any employee and the chairman or CEO of a company. If you pay too much attention to the minor differences between employees, this will become an obstacle to maintaining unity in dealing with management."
A pillar of civil society
Chiu Yu-bin, a former union official and now a researcher at a Kaohsiung-based union of NGO employees, observes, "In the past, workers in all professions and industries, no matter what their pay, and no matter whether employed in government or the private sector, faced hard going because the laws were very strict. They only got a chance to have their voices heard after some tragedy had happened. But now they can find strength through union organization."
In his view, in adopting action strategies new unions can initiate discussion about problems at the systemic level and prompt social dialogue. For example, preschool education workers' unions have already proposed creating public or community organizations to handle day care rather than leaving it all to the private sector, while the Taiwan Telecommunication and Network Trade Union has asked firms in their industry to bring outsourced contract laborers into the firm as formal employees. The new unions should also investigate and reveal rights violations at well-known firms, and ask these firms to uphold their corporate social responsibility. Through such tactics the unions can simultaneously raise their visibility and attract new members and supporters. Helping individual workers get their grievances resolved, though important, is only one part of a union's role.
Hong Qinghai, an advisor to the ROC Chinese Federation of Labor, has written in an article that although the revisions to the three labor laws have come into force, it is precisely at this time that labor is facing a very harsh larger environment. Globalization is leading to worsening structural unemployment, atypical employment (such as temps) is being used more and more extravagantly by businesses, and the distribution of wages is unjust. All of these challenges will be very difficult to tackle.
In such circumstances, the role of unions as pillars of civil society is even more pronounced. "Through the power of unions," Hong writes, "employment can be stabilized, income distribution can be made more fair and reasonable, and families will have more ability to engage in consumer, recreational, and educational activities, which will contribute to the development of the economy, culture, and society all at the same time."
Mere passage of a law does not make reality instantly different. The development of unions and their role in civil society is now in the hands of workers themselves, and their fate will affect us all.