TAIPEI (TVBS News) — A major labor coalition representing more than 70 Taiwanese unions issued a stark warning Tuesday (June 17) that at least half a million workers across the island face potential job losses or reduced hours due to uncertainties surrounding reciprocal tariffs from the United States. The umbrella organization sharply criticized Taiwan's top leadership, including President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) and Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), head of Taiwan's cabinet, for prioritizing over 20 meetings with industry executives while consistently failing to engage with representatives from the labor movement.
Labor policy researcher Chen Po-chien (陳柏謙), speaking at a press conference organized by the coalition, underscored the devastating consequences that escalating trade tensions could have on worker protections and job stability throughout Taiwan's export-dependent economy. Chen referenced international parallels, noting that the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has projected more than 5 million European workers could suffer employment disruptions from the same wave of protectionist tariffs. Municipal authorities in two major industrial centers—Taoyuan, a manufacturing hub near Taipei, and Tainan in the south — have already calculated potential impacts on 180,000 and 300,000 workers respectively, while officials in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's largest port city, have not yet published their assessment.
The researcher drew unflattering comparisons between Taiwan's approach and that of neighboring Japan, where Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (石破茂) has established formal consultation mechanisms with Japanese labor unions to address similar tariff challenges. This collaborative approach stands in stark contrast to Taiwan's apparent reluctance to engage with worker representatives, according to the coalition. Wang Ching-hung (王慶宏), who leads the Kaohsiung Independent Federation of Union (高雄市獨立總工會), a significant labor organization in southern Taiwan, expressed concern that government officials might make trade concessions without considering worker protections, leaving factory employees and other frontline workers to absorb the economic consequences of any agreement.
Tai Kuo-jung (戴國榮), who chairs the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions (全國產業總工會), one of the island's largest labor umbrella organizations, called for the immediate establishment of a three-way consultation framework involving worker representatives, industry leaders, and government officials to comprehensively evaluate how trade policies affect employment stability. His appeal gains urgency from recent statistics published by the Ministry of Labor (勞動部), Taiwan's national labor authority, which documented 160 companies already implementing reduced working hours affecting 2,895 employees nationwide, with 38 businesses and 1,189 workers specifically identifying international tariffs as the direct cause of their employment disruption. ◼
