Suwatcha Saenphon-on suffered third-degree burns over most of his body after a plastics-plant explosion.
This photo was taken days before he died at age 25.

Suwatcha worked in a factory, making chemicals used in plastic. After about a year on the job, his goals were shattered when there was a chemical explosion in the factory. He suffered third-degree burns all over his body.

Upon hearing this horrific news, I and the two Thai social workers at our Columban Hope Workers’ Center in Chungli traveled three hours to the hospital to visit Suwatcha. His bandages made him look like a mummy.

His eyes voiced his intolerable pain. In Thai, he whispered, “I don’t want to die!” Nothing could hold back the tears that welled inside me. This young man clung to life with every breath. Two weeks later, Suwatcha died with his girlfriend by his side. They had planned to get married.

‘Push & Pull’ Economy
Why did Suwatcha leave his family to find work in Taiwan? His family was struggling to survive on the meager earnings they received for growing rice.

In the past, Suwatcha’s parents and grandparents had thrived on the land.

So what changed?

The global free market and liberalization of trade has led to enormous competition in the rice market. There is no longer any price security for Thai rice farmers.

There is a direct correlation between globalization—economic in the global age—and migration. The factors that create economic migration are generated by the negative effects of globalization.

The flow and dynamics of labor migration are dictated by “push and pull” factors. The push factors are those pressures that encourage workers to work overseas.

For example, the Thai government, straddled with World Bank debts, gives no monetary relief to their poverty-stricken rice farmers. Consequently, Suwatcha, like many other Thai farmers, was pushed out of his homeland to find work in Taiwan.

The pull factors are pressures that encourage a country to import migrant labor. In Taiwan, massive economic restructuring has led local workers, especially youth, to move away from the “3D” (dirty, dangerous and difficult) work toward the service sectors. You now find many young Taiwanese working in convenience stores, fast-food chains, gasoline stations and department stores.

Thousands of small, family-owned factories, like the factory where Suwatcha worked, do not follow Taiwan’s health and safety law. Likewise the government makes little effort to monitor factory safety. Out of fear for their lives, many local workers refuse to work in such “3D” factories.

Migrant worker Kitti Thanchai of Thailand had his right leg amputated after a slab of iron crushed his foot in a workplace accident.

Companies also prefer migrant contract labor over local labor because contract labor demands fewer long-term social and economic benefits, such as retirement pensions and
separation pay.

Abuse is also found when migrants work for families. As Taiwanese women are absorbed into the labor force, their roles change and they require domestic workers to care for their children and caretakers to care for their sick, elderly parents. Foreign domestic workers and caretakers are one-quarter the price of local workers.

In their contracts, workers are required to live with the family of their Taiwanese employers. This provides a means to make them indentured servants, working in slave-like conditions an average of 16 to 18 hours a day.

The pull factors are basic. There can be no movement of labor across borders—especially ones separated by oceans and great distances—if there is no demand in host countries. Greater demand and the struggling Taiwanese economy have meant more migrant workers and more abuses.

In 2002, the Hope Workers’ Center, founded by Columban missionaries in 1986, handled 943 cases of abuse involving 6,145 migrant workers. In 2001, the center handled 1,826 cases of abuse involving 12,865 migrant workers. With the worsening Taiwanese economy, workers are more afraid of reporting abuses out of fear of being repatriated.

A Disposable Workforce
In 2002, the center handled 39 occupational accident cases; in 2001, there were 66 such cases. These numbers represent only migrant workers who make it to our center. I have heard endless stories of migrant workers who have had their limbs chopped off as a result of unsafe working conditions and their ruthless employers discarding them
like trash.

Here are three recent examples of migrants we have helped:

• Saengjan Khianphonkrang, a 28-year-old migrant worker from Thailand, came to our center with his left arm chopped off after it was sucked into a textile machine. The center helped him receive $14,500 (U.S.) from his labor insurance. During our negotiations with his employer, we sought compensation for Saengjan, who lost patience in the process and returned to Thailand after receiving only $2,900 from his employer.
• Kitti Thanchai from Thailand is a father of two children. A huge slab of iron fell on his right foot, which was amputated. When gangrene set in, his lower leg was amputated. The center helped him receive compensation from his labor insurance, but he didn’t want to endure the long and arduous process of seeking compensation from his employer.
• Samuel Vitagan is from the Philippines and married with three young children. While working, a heavy steel beam fell on both his legs. I acted as his translator in numerous consultations with his doctor. After several operations, his right leg ended up shorter than his left. He now walks with a limp.

The broken bodies of migrant workers are too many to count. Their young, energetic lives are shattered and destroyed.

For nine years, I have worked with migrant workers in Taiwan, and the government has done nothing to introduce safer working conditions.

According to Taiwan’s health and safety law, an employer is only required to report an occupational accident if three or more workers are injured.

We have lobbied the government on many occasions, insisting on a policy requiring a factory to be inspected if a migrant worker has an occupational accident and banning the employer from employing migrant workers until the factory has passed a rigid health and safety checkup.

Until this day, our pleas have fallen on deaf ears, but the Hope Workers’ Center will continue to stand vigilant in protecting the human rights of migrant workers.

I will never forget the memory of Suwatcha clinging onto hope. The photo taken of him only days before his death is a stark reminder of the cruel effects of globalization on migrant workers in Taiwan.

Columban Father Peter O’Neill of Australia is the director of the Hope Workers’ Center in Taiwan.