Taiwan Labor Watch

Taiwan’s labor brokerage system is a recruitment and administrative mechanism designed to facilitate employers’ hiring needs, but it has generated numerous systemic abuses.

Taiwan’s unfair labor practice decision system was established to maintain substantive equality between labor and management in union organization and collective bargaining.

This article analyzes Wanhua Chemical (formerly Asia Chemical) as a case study of the structural limits of Taiwan’s unfair labor practice system. Since its incorporation into a larger corporate group in 2013, the company has faced repeated labor disputes involving union leaders and, more recently, migrant workers seeking union membership. Although labor authorities have issued formal rulings, these interventions have often failed to prevent continued pressure on union activity. The article highlights how legal remedies tend to operate after harm has occurred and how labor brokers, while not legally defined as employers, wield substantial influence over migrant workers. It argues that without stronger preventive mechanisms, unfair labor practices risk becoming a manageable cost rather than an effective deterrent.