Corporate social responsibility

On September 21, marking the second anniversary of the murder of Diosado "Ka Fort" Fortuna, renowned Philippine labor leader and union president of striking Nestle workers, and the 35th anniversary of the declaration of martial law in the Philippines, Taiwanese groups called for a boycott of all Nestle products. More than twenty protestors including unionists, students, academics, and common citizens picketed the headquarters of Nestle Taiwan, leafleted the lunchtime crowd and covered Nestle advertisement with protest stickers. The protest was organized by Taiwan Committee for Philippines Concerns and Consumer Action, Taiwan, and participated by Labor Rights Association and other groups.

DISNEY Refuses Responsibility for 800 Laid-Off Chinese Workers Students and labor groups protested outside the DISNEY Hong Kong office

From SACOM

Shenzhen-based Huang Xing Factory used to receive up to 80% of its orders from DISNEY and manufactured branded merchandise such as Mickey key chains and purses. It however had lost a substantial amount of the orders from DISNEY soon after SACOM drew the attention of mass media to sweatshop labor at Huang Xing in September 2006.

GP Batteries (GP Batteries International Limited), held by Gold Peak Industries (Holdings) Limited, took legal action against Hong Kong labour groups in order to stop them from exposing the heavy mental poisoning situation in their production line and fighting for workers' compensation.

On 28 June 2006, Gold Peak applied to the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to issue a summons against two labour NGOs (Globalization Monitor and the Neighbourhood & Worker’s Service Center) and the local trade union Confederation (The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions), which had been assisting the workers, for defamation.

Last year a shop in Mongkok, the most populous shopping area of Hong Kong, was taken over by a new tenant, a Korean cosmetic company. It afforded a rental as high as HK$ 980,000, more than 50% higher than the previous one. Some believed that Hong Kong Disneyland would create an economic booming, particularly in retailing sector, by attracting a huge number of mainland Chinese tourists. However, less than one year later, it withdrew from Mongkok and terminated the leasehold.

In response to Foxconn's legal prosecution against a reporter and an editor in the First Financial daily because of their reports on the working condition of i-pod subcontracting factory in Shenzhen, First Financial Daily issued an open letter condemning Foxconn.

In the public statement, the First Financial Daily stated:

1. they would support Wang You and Weng Bao in the trial as Wang You was just fulfilling his duty as reporter.

In June 13 this year, Macworld quoted from Mail on Sunday’s report, said that Foxconn, which is owned by Taiwan capital Honghai, was exploiting workers in their Shenzhen factory. The report was picked up by BBC and other news agencies. The Shanghai based First Financial Daily published two reports on the working conditions of Foxconn factories in Jun 15 and 22, the first article said that workers were forced to stand 12 hours long, the second one pointed out that the company’s basic salary was very low, while bonus was big.

In China, there are 60 Walmart outlets, mostly located in the urban centers of coastal cities. But over the past ten years, its total investment in China is only about US$57 million. How could it be possible?

Yahoo! auction site is a very popular portal in Taiwan. With 3.7 million items and the annual transaction value of NT$22 billion (2005), it owns most of the local market. It recently announced that all users will be charged 3% of transaction fees on most of the items. It aroused users' severe complaints and they accused Yahoo! of violating the Fair Trade Act.