Youth Labor Union 95:A Voice for Young Workers

At 7:00 p.m., dinnertime for most people, two youths appear at the door of the Legal Aid Foundation on Jinshan South Road in Taipei. Carrying stacks of documents, they are preparing to ask for assistance in filing a lawsuit.

"It's outrageous that the Control Yuan, a public supervisory agency, behaves in such a manner!" vents one of them, 28-year-old Chen Chongguang. Chen used to be a "temporary employee" in the asset declaration division of the Control Yuan. He was paid NT$100 an hour, but the division didn't start chipping in for his Labor Insurance, National Health Insurance and retirement fund contributions until he was in his fifth month there, and they didn't pay him 1.33 to two times his regular wage when he worked overtime, as required by law.

Consequently, aided by YLU 95, which describes itself as an advocate for young workers, Chen called a press conference. Afterwards, the Control Yuan admitted it had made some mistakes and showed good faith in holding talks with him on several occasions, agreeing to compensate him. But Chen felt that the Control Yuan "owed him a public apology" and consequently made use of the Labor Rights Fund provided by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) to formally file a lawsuit against the Control Yuan.

"I was very fortunate to have YLU 95 to accompany me through the process," he says with great sincerity. "Otherwise I never would have dared to go up against a much stronger foe. YLU 95 truly provides disadvantaged young workers like me with the best of support!"

A student part-times wearing a sandwich board outside the VieShow cinema complex in Taipei's Xinyi District.

After holding discussions with other NGOs, a group of students who had participated in the Pan-Purple Alliance organized by Chien Hsi-chieh, a senior social activist, resolved at the end of 2004 that Taiwan's minimum wage, long kept at NT$66, needed to be raised to NT$95. They went to the CLA in protest, calling for labor "to get some long overdue justice." But they never received a formal response.

Willing to fight to the end, the students adopted the NT$95 minimum wage as their calling-card issue, naming their group Youth Labor Union 95. From 2005 to 2007, they not only carried out a survey of "supermarkets that break labor laws"; they also personally went to McDonald's, KFC and other fast-food franchises to draw attention to the fact that the basic fast-food wage of NT$72 per hour wasn't even sufficient to buy a Big Mac. They've also held various seminars on "dependent at 30" and "the young poor." The group has worked to draw attention in all quarters of society to the issue of exploitation of young workers.

Partly as a result of these young people's unflagging efforts, the Executive Yuan ended up announcing on July 1, 2007 that the minimum monthly wage would rise from NT$15,840 to NT$17,280 and the minimum hourly wage would rise from NT$66 to NT$95. Because of the role it played, YLU 95 became the subject of many media reports, and its members became hotly sought after for interviews. Apple Daily even published the mobile phone numbers of some of its members, suggesting that if readers became involved in a dispute with an employer and didn't know where to turn they might consider contacting these young people.

"That day, our phones rang so much, they nearly exploded!" YLU 95 member Liu Youxue recalls. "It wasn't until that happened that we realized how widespread exploitation was in the Taiwan labor market, and we decided once and for all to work as advocates on individual cases."

Working part time, temping, interning.... With good jobs hard to find, "the impoverishment of youth" has become a thorny problem all around the world and is a central concern of Youth Labor Union 95.

Through the unremitting efforts of the older generation of labor movement activists, ROC labor laws gradually became more comprehensive during the 1990s. Progress has been made in combating the mistreatment of workers when plants close and the cavalier firing of long-serving personnel, but some employers are still abusing workers' rights, whether intentionally or not.

YLU 95 receives two to three complaints a day on average. Among common grievances are those about employers "not paying for National Health Insurance," "not paying salaries or overtime," "offering compensation below the minimum wage," or "requiring workers to pay large 'breach of contract' penalties when leaving." Depending on the severity of the circumstances, YLU 95 can take a variety of steps, such as providing relevant legal information, assisting the aggrieved workers in sending legal attest letters to their employers, applying for mediation from the CLA, or accompanying the workers during mediation or negotiations with management.

If they discover that these victims have been mistreated in a manner that is prevalent within the industry, they will go a step further and help the workers hold press conferences, thus bringing greater exposure to these issues and potentially quickening the pace of restitution. For instance, several times they exposed franchisees of the coffee and cake shop chain 85°C for breaking labor law, and they put strong pressure on 85°C's head office to clean up its act.

Over a period of more than two years, YLU 95 has handled 116 separate grievance claims, fighting to get more than NT$2 million in wages and insurance payments paid out by employers. It's harder to put a number on those that have benefitted indirectly. (If city or county labor bureaus take action against a company for violating labor law, in addition to the workers filing complaints, others of the same company's workers who were victims are also compensated.) The impact of the group's work is considerable.

Behind all the accolades YLU 95 has garnered, its young staffers have put forth enormous effort-an amount that's hard for outsiders to imagine. First of all, most of the members of the organization come from university departments or graduate institutes of labor affairs, sociology or economics, so they've already got a lot of coursework to attend to. Then on top of that they've got to find time to become familiar with labor law, meet to consider actions to take on individual cases, participate in one labor-management negotiation after another, and even accompany workers to court. Individual cases can take anywhere from a month to half a year to wrap up. "Consequently," jokes YLU 95 member Lucas Hu, "we all end up completing a third year in our master's program or a fifth year of our undergraduate studies, and still we're unable to graduate."

Working part time, temping, interning.... With good jobs hard to find, "the impoverishment of youth" has become a thorny problem all around the world and is a central concern of Youth Labor Union 95.

What's more, those filing complaints often treat the group as if it were a debt collection agency. It's an attitude that frustrates YLU 95's members.

"Our original hope in providing this service was to awaken a sense of social consciousness in the individuals themselves, so that after they return to their jobs they might become union organizers and work with other employees to fight for their rights. But Liu Youxue says regretfully that most of those who file complaints, after receiving compensation, simply disappear "like the wake of a boat."

"Never mind organizing other workers or becoming YLU 95 members-they don't even keep in contact with us. That's probably the most frustrating part of the job!"

Apart from finding it difficult to raise the labor consciousness of workers with grievances, YLU 95 also faces a problem common to all youth social movements: organizational staying power. When the group was started more than a year ago, it had more than 10 members, but with some students graduating and others becoming absorbed in writing their theses, only five members are now taking on cases.

"To work at YLU 95 you need familiarity with labor law, so it's not easy to find new blood," Liu notes. "That's YLU 95's biggest problem as it looks toward the future."

Nevertheless, even if it's impossible to ignore the dark clouds looming on the horizon, YLU 95 members are nonetheless eager, despite severe financial limitations, to transcend individual interests and work toward achieving broader ideals. "Without putting theory into practice, academic study is insipid!" declares YLU 95 member Lin Yizhi. Every time he thinks of all the disadvantaged workers with nowhere else to turn, he deeply hears the call of duty and vows to continue his work.

Perhaps with many energetic and non-cynical youths like him, Taiwan society will continue heading toward a fairer and more ideal future.