"Migrant Workers Pay Sky-high Fees to Expand Taiwan’s Biggest Airport,"

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Migrant workers at the construction site [for Taiwan's international airport in Taoyuan] soon found themselves facing multiple forced labor risks that a decade of preparations and a multibillion-dollar budget apparently didn’t plan for. Interviewees said they were working under “very high debt” paid to recruiters for jobs and also complained about deceptive Taiwanese labor brokers and punitive management. Over 500 migrants have fled the site, becoming undocumented workers...

All 12 Vietnamese men The Diplomat interviewed said they borrowed most or all the $4,300 to $5,700 they paid in recruitment fees. Some were still indebted at the time of the interviews. Every colleague they knew also incurred debt to pay recruiters, they said...

On top of their debts, the construction workers also paid monthly service fees to Taiwanese labor brokers, corresponding to two months of pay per three-year contract, which is unavoidable for workers...

Workers spoke about threats, harassment, and punishment with fines of 3,000 to 5,000 NTD ($92 to $155) or a few days off without pay. Other types of punishment included deportation, which can be imposed, for example, if workers fight or receive three warning letters. Several interviewees mentioned continuous deportation threats by supervisors. 

... The lead contractors, Samsung C&T from Korea and its Taiwanese partner RSEA Engineering, began construction in 2021 as a joint venture...

All interviewees believed they were employed by Samsung, since recruiters had told them so, and the workers wore Samsung-logo uniforms at work. However, the Chinese-language employer name on their Alien Residence Cards translates to RSEA Engineering, the local partner of Samsung. The workers can’t read Chinese. The 25 payslips and attendance lists shared with The Diplomat by workers contain no employer names, but Samsung’s name and logo appeared prominently on wall-to-wall banners at events held by recruiters in Vietnam, some interviewees said. This is confirmed by videos and photos on Facebook and on recruitment agency websites...

Samsung C&T, the government’s main contractor, and member of Korea’s biggest corporate group, said that it “is not involved in recruitment of migrant workers and were not provided with the details of the recruitment contract between local recruiters and workers in advance.”...

Taiwan’s government is one of the ultimate owners of the private firm RSEA Engineering, because a government agency holds shares in RSEA, Samsung’s construction partner on the airport site. The agency, the Veterans Affairs Council, confirmed that RSEA hires migrants via an intermediary agency and stressed that it “only holds a minority stake in RSEA (less than 10 percent) and neither recommend managerial positions nor possess decision-making authority.”...

Some of the world’s biggest government-owned pension funds invest in Giant Manufacturing, Samsung C&T, and L&K Engineering, the parent of RSEA Engineering...

Some of the world’s biggest private investors, including BlackRock, Vanguard and Dimensional, also own shares in both Taiwanese manufacturers Giant Manufacturing and L&K Engineering (parent of RSEA_, while JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Schroder, Hermes, and the Royal Bank of Canada hold Giant shares, too...

[Following the posting of this article, the Resource Centre received a statement from Federated Hermes, which had been linked to Giant Manufacturing: “We previously had a small equity holding in Giant Manufacturing, which we have fully divested from based upon the fund's ESG criteria, which the company no longer meets”.]