Protest at Computex Expo Taipei June 5th 2010

Today, EVA and I decided to visit a small protest that was held at the huge 30th Computex in Taipei - an exhibition of all the latest computer software and hardware that is attended by representatives of all the world's biggest computer firms.

We arrived just at the start of the protest which was held impromptu inside the main entrance. Whilst two to three main speakers took turns on the loudspeaker, three volunteers lay on the ground with signs around them including a list of the workers who have died recently in Foxconn and other 'sweatshop' operators whilst another sprayed them with 'blood'. The protest of about 7 - 10 people quickly caught the attention of exhibition security, officials and police. The following video captures some of the exchange between protesters and officials before the protesters peacefully agreed to move outside (8:03 long):

Here's the CTS report.

The protest continued outside for a while whilst security and police took pictures of everyone.

Quite a few of the 'finest' profession were on hand to get stock footage for later manipulation ...

The rain brought an end to proceedings

There were no 'scenes' but I think was in part because the protestors had a really huge man with them (I called him Bear) whose sheer physical presence was enough to make any aggressive security official think twice about a game of 'push him - he pushed me!'.

The protesters handed out a leaflet in Mandarin and English titled '7 Most Wanted Criminals by Taiwan's NGOs'. The guilty named are:

1. Steve Jobs (Apple) - excessive profiteering
2. Hyley Huang (Wintek) - poisoning of workers, mass redundancies
3. Cher Wang (HTC) - Union-breaking, underage employment
4. Dezheng Lin (Young Fast Optoelectronics) - union-breaking, excessive profiteering, not paying sufficient health insurance premiums / overtime
5. Kuen-Yao Lee (AU Optronics) - environmental destruction, CTSP corporation
6. Terry Guo (Foxconn / Hon Hai Precision Industry) - 60-100 hours overtime each month, boot-camp management, physical and verbal abuse & multiple suicides
7. Lee Kun-hee (Samsung) - poisoning of workers and denying responsibility, union-breaking

The leaflet also included an article from EETimes.com by Bolaji Ojo titled, "Opinion: Western OEMs must end their complicity in exploiting Chinese workers". The article argues that western based OEMs such as Apple, Hewlett Packard, Dell, Microsoft, Cisco and IBM have been propping up the sweatshop factory model in China, South Korea and Japan amongst other East Asian countries, through exerting profit pressures on manufacturers and giving lip service to 'facility inspections' whilst missing the biggest issues: low wages and forced dormitory housing. These companies would not legally be able to produce their products by themselves in the same conditions as China in their home countries. Foxconn hires around 800,000 workers who work six day weeks, most of whom do excessive overtime hours, even as much as back to back 24 hour shifts. Ojo comes out with a cracking indictment of human greed:

"By accepting these conditions, we in the west have enabled China's blistering and economic growth and our addiction to cheaper products."

Ojo finishes by writing off the promises of 20-24% increases in average wages by Foxconn and Honda as just propping up the current unjust system - a system that western OEMs refuse to acknowledge.