She Died in a Taiwan Factory. Her Family Was Met With Indifference

When Deserie Castro Tagubasi died on August 28, she was nearing the end of her three-year contract working in the chemical etching department at the Zhunan, Miaoli factory of semiconductor component and LED manufacturer Tyntek Corp. Deserie, a 29-year-old native of Iligan, Isabela in the Philippines’ northern island of Luzon, planned to arrive home in late September to celebrate her mother’s 61st birthday and the 20th birthday of her youngest brother.

Deserie never made it home alive. She passed away in a Taipei hospital after a container of hydrofluoric acid she was working with spilled on the back of her lower right leg.

While the official accident report has not yet been released to the public, testimonies from coworkers, brokers and nongovernmental organizations assisting in the case, along with a copy of the accident report obtained by Ketagalan Media, paint a picture of extreme negligence by Tyntek both before and after the incident, along with discrepancies between worker testimonies and the government report.

They also reveal an inability by various agencies, including government bodies, to properly assist Deserie’s grieving family during their stay in Taiwan in the aftermath of an accident that was entirely avoidable.

Ketagalan Media followed Deserie’s family and its legal representatives during their recent visit to Taiwan following her fatal accident, where they participated in a protest outside Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor (MOL), met with Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) representatives in Taichung, and visited the funeral parlor where Deserie’s body was being prepared for repatriation.

But Deserie’s family was subjected to a chaotic process, laden with encounters with officials and agencies seemingly eager to pass on their tasks to someone else. The search for answers, painful as it was, could have been made easier. Instead, the family worried about who to contact, who to direct their questions toward, and who to trust.

We witnessed how Taiwan’s system of support for bereaved families, in the aftermath of tragedy, is sorely lacking both in effective communication and in human compassion.

The day of the accident

Deserie’s accident occurred at 9:52 a.m. August 28. In the afternoon, Jopman Corporation, the Philippine placement agency that managed Deserie, informed her eldest brother, Danilo, that she was in critical condition after a workplace accident.

Deserie had been transferred to the specialist burns unit at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, arriving shortly after 12 p.m. Meanwhile, MECO, in association with brokerage agencies, tried to locate Deserie’s youngest sister, Dechie, who also works at a factory in Zhunan.

But it was too late to get Dechie and RJ, Deserie’s boyfriend, to her bedside in Taipei. Deserie succumbed to her injuries shortly after 9 p.m., just minutes before they arrived.

“We were all in shock because we did not expect that what happened to her will result in her passing away,” read a statement delivered on behalf of the family outside MOL headquarters in Taipei on September 16.

MECO: A failure to support their nationals in Taiwan

Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor does not consider liaison with the family of the deceased to be their role.

Instead, they delegate the responsibility to MECO, the Philippine representative office. MECO, in turn, puts the task of contacting and corresponding with the family at the feet of the brokerage firm in Taiwan and the placement agency in the Philippines.

Fidel Macauyag, a labor attaché at MECO Taichung, said brokerage firms, which are accredited by MECO, play an important role in cases such as Deserie’s, carrying out tasks such as contacting the family of the deceased and arranging the repatriation of the remains.

“The broker will take care of the legwork of the [MECO] office and take care of the workers,” he said. “If something happens to the worker, it is the duty of the broker to bring her to the hospital or to visit her at the police to take care of everything… In case of death, the broker is obliged to take care of everything at the hospital and at the funeral parlor.”

“There are 150,000 Filipino workers in Taiwan,” Macauyag said. “In central Taiwan, we have 35,000 workers. If there is no broker, do you think our office, which has only a handful of employees, can do all this work needed? We cannot. That is why we give accreditation to the brokers. They are our buffers.”

According to the family, MECO did not act to refer the family to a lawyer, despite the high likelihood that Deserie’s accident will result in a criminal case and a possible civil settlement. When the family, with the assistance of NGOs, found a lawyer to represent them, this was also met with resistance from MECO.

Carlito Marquez Jr., an officer at MECO Taichung, sent a message on September 14 to the family in a group chat named “Tagubasi Repatriation” in which he confirmed the meeting time and said that Macauyag, the labor attaché, “agreed to let you bring your lawyer provided that you only talk about insurance. No one else will talk aside from the lawyer.”

This message appears to be an attempt to block the family from discussing a possible criminal or civil case with the company—and, by extension, the possibility of a settlement.

According to Deserie’s family, along with chat records viewed by Ketagalan Media between family members and the Philippine placement agency Jopman Corporation, an employee of Jopman handling Deserie’s case also instructed the family: “Don’t bring NGOs into this.”

The brokers: On the side of the companies

In the four days that followed the accident, Deserie’s brokerage firm placed Dechie, her younger sister, in her four-bed dorm room at Tyntek, according to family members and Summit Manpower agents. This was ostensibly done to ease the process of handling paperwork.

Dechie, who is managed by a different broker who also has employees stationed at Tyntek, was initially granted two weeks’ leave from work to deal with the aftermath of her sister’s death. Dechie spent time with Deserie’s roommates, who recalled Deserie as a kind, generous soul who loved to cook and was always ready with advice.

However, their family back home quickly became concerned that this arrangement was not entirely benevolent.

Digna filling out paperwork at the HOPE workers center after the MECO meeting.

Deserie’s eldest sister, Digna, told Ketagalan Media the family worried that Dechie was placed in Deserie’s dorm room so a broker would always be looking over her shoulder. Digna, 39, quickly worried that the 25-year-old Dechie would not be able to wrest control of the situation from the brokers.

The family also felt that MECO and the brokerage firm were having conversations about the case that the family were not privy to. This is commonplace, as brokers work closely with MECO.

Joanne Lin, the vice president of Deserie’s brokerage agency, Summit Manpower, said in an email her agency assumes responsibility for contacting families in case of death or serious injury of a worker on their books. The agency also assists in getting family members to Taiwan to deal with the aftermath.

“MECO helps with the documentations [sic] necessary to process in the Philippines and we help the processes in Taiwan,” she said. “We coordinate to meet with the family’s request the soonest and best way.”

Lin said the agency has around 40 employees and handles 2,300 overseas foreign workers (OFWs), 99% of whom are from the Philippines.

“We may be small,” she said, “but we have big hearts to serve all our foreign workers.”

But brokerage firms, as well as placement agencies, often do not retain the trust of workers and their families. Taiwan’s brokerage agencies are regularly accused of malfeasance and some Taiwanese NGOs call for the brokerage system to be abolished entirely.

This distrust of brokers holds especially true when there is possible negligence by the employer. Brokers work closely with employers and rely on them for existence, including in the aftermath of an accident resulting in death: In this case, the employer will still use the broker’s services while the now-deceased worker will not. Brokers thus have little interest in seeing the families of deceased workers sue their former employers.

In a text message, Lin denied the family’s allegations that Summit Manpower may have operated in bad faith. “I have no idea where this is coming from,” she said. “Our purpose is the same as others, to help her and her family. We do not have the right to do that, right? And what for?”

NGOs step in to assist where other agencies fail

Although the family was discouraged from seeking their help, four NGOs assisted them during their time in Taiwan: Taipei-based NGOs Taiwan International Workers Association (TIWA) and Migrants Empowerment Network in Taiwan (MENT), Taoyuan-based NGO Serve the People Association (SPA) and Hsinchu-based HOPE Workers Center.

Wu Jing-ru (吳靜如), a researcher at TIWA, explained that brokers often put enormous pressure on the families of the deceased to resolve cases quickly. In the process, they tend to avoid mentioning the possibility of suing companies for negligence for industrial accidents.

Instead, she said, they pressure families to accept the bare minimum labor insurance payout they are legally entitled to. (This generally consists of 40 months of salary plus five additional months to cover funeral expenses, along with a small monthly stipend given to the parents of the deceased.) TIWA advises families on possible compensation from civil cases and their other legal rights.

“The families don’t really understand the regulations and laws in Taiwan,” Wu said. “In this case, there was pressure on the family not only from the broker, but also from MECO to not allow NGOs to be involved.”

Wu added that, in her view, MECO feared embarrassing the Taiwanese government and possibly triggering a lowering of migrant worker quotas.

Brokers usually do not provide families with the necessary information on investigations, said Wu, who has long called for the abolition of the brokerage system in favor of a government controlled direct hiring scheme—something Taiwan’s MOL has long resisted.

“The government [doesn’t] treat [migrant workers] as residents,” she said. “There are not enough services for them, and so it is very easy for the brokers to monopolize the situation.”

The family takes a stand

The family decided to send Digna to Taiwan to handle the aftermath of the case out of concern that Dechie could face repercussions while completing her contract.

Digna turned out to be a strong fighter for the rights of her family. She took over the legal responsibility for handling her sister’s affairs; with the help of TIWA and other NGOs, she signed over power of attorney to a lawyer, Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智), who will receive a small stipend from Taiwan’s Legal Aid Foundation. Chiu previously represented the family of Nguyen Quoc Phi, a Vietnamese worker who was unlawfully shot by police in Hsinchu in August 2017.

Digna also agreed to hold the press conference on the morning of September 16 outside of the Ministry of Labor in Taipei, presenting a formal request to the government for a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding her sister’s death and conditions in the workplace, including employee training. The family felt this was necessary not only for Deserie, but for the 149 other Filipino workers currently employed at Tyntek.

“I am here to seek justice for my sister,” Digna said that morning. “There is no amount of money that will replace my sister’s life. We want the company to be liable for what happened because we know that they have lapses and negligence regarding the [safety] of the workers. We are doing this not only for my sister. This is also for the other workers in that company so that the same incident will not be repeated.”

The Ministry of Labor fails to communicate with the family

Absent from the above, of course, is the Taiwanese government.

As a factory worker, Deserie was under the purview of Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor, ostensibly responsible for securing the welfare of the country’s massive population of Southeast Asian workers.

In the days and weeks that followed the accident however, Taiwan’s MOL was nowhere to be found in terms of communicating with the family. No MOL representatives reached out to Dechie in the days after the accident, nor did they assist Deserie’s family during their time in Taiwan.

The only face time Deserie’s family ever received with a MOL official was a brief exchange, encompassing less than five minutes, when Digna held her press conference outside the ministry’s Taipei headquarters.

Yeh Pei-chieh (葉沛杰), a section chief in the Division of Planning and Occupational Health in the MOL’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), accepted a petition submitted by Digna and stated that an investigation had been started the day after the accident. He added that it appeared that the correct safety clothing had not been provided. (This was substantiated by the OSHA report obtained by Ketagalan Media.)

Digna and NGOs hand over the petition to the Ministry of Labor.

In response to questions about how families are informed of the progress of an investigation, OSHA said in an email: “If necessary, family members can request OSHA to access the report in accordance with the administrative procedure.”

In a phone call, OSHA confirmed that this procedure consists simply of calling the office to start the process—although, of course, paperwork must be filed to prove the familial relationship. A Mandarin speaker would have to handle this for the family. The Taiwan government did not assist the family in beginning this process, despite Digna’s presence outside Ministry of Labor headquarters on September 16.

It is not clear, therefore, why the MOL did not advise the family on how to proceed with requesting access to the report into the accident.

In compiling the OSHA report for the Tyntek case, the responsible investigator also failed to speak with any non-Taiwanese workers, including multiple witnesses to the accident and its aftermath, at the factory where Deserie lost her life.

Tyntek: A litany of failings to protect workers

OSHA told Ketagalan Media in an email that Tyntek’s Zhunan branch notified the agency of the occupational accident on August 28 at 9:58 p.m. OSHA’s central office dispatched inspectors to the factory and conducted an investigation on August 29.

“In accordance with the approved report, the company violated Article 6, Paragraph 1 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which has been referred to Miaoli District Prosecutors Office,” the OSHA representative said.

OSHA also confirmed that official copies of the report were sent to Tyntek and the Miaoli District Prosecutors Office on September 19, just two days after the Taipei press conference.

Article 6.1 of Taiwan’s Occupational Safety and Health Act covers the provision of safety and health equipment, along with related measures including planning first aid.

The full OSHA report, which Ketagalan Media has obtained ahead of publication, lists nine violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, OSHA’s education and training rules, regulations covering the handling of chemicals, and safety labeling.

Tyntek declined a request for comment from Ketagalan Media on September 24, citing the ongoing investigation. Tyntek did not respond to several subsequent attempts to seek comment.

The meeting at MECO: Shocking lack of compassion from all agencies

On September 17, the family were scheduled to attend a meeting at MECO’s Taichung office with Tyntek, the brokers and MECO representatives.

There were 15 people, excluding Ketagalan Media, in the meeting: four people representing Tyntek, including its lawyer, three representatives from Summit Manpower, and various MECO staff. The family party numbered five: a second volunteer lawyer, a translator and representative respectively from the MENT and HOPE Workers Center, and the two sisters.

There were no officials from the Taiwan government, including the MOL, present at the meeting.

Had the family not brought along the NGO representatives and lawyer it was discouraged from reaching out to, the two bereaved sisters would have faced a room of 11 people. The power dynamic would be much different. Digna, the elder sister, said that while the meeting went smoothly despite palpable tension in the room, she felt that MECO “just went with the flow.”

In the meeting, the MECO officials—Sergio T. Eulogio, the director, and Macauyag, the labor attaché—were firm in their declarations that their purpose was to protect the rights of their citizens. They opened the meeting with a rundown of “the facts” and the actions that MECO had taken to protect these rights, in particular focusing on steps toward the repatriation of Deserie’s body.

Digna, however, felt that MECO was not on the family’s side. “They just stated what they have done and never showed sympathy to the family,” she said.

During the meeting, nobody from MECO, Tyntek or Summit Manpower offered any expression of condolence or acknowledgement of the sisters’ bereavement.

The legal entitlements under labor insurance and Tyntek’s group insurance were explained. Tyntek also handed over a donation to the family that had been collected from the employees at the factory. Tyntek also said it would pay Dechie the equivalent of a month’s salary to cover her absence from work.

The family’s Taiwanese lawyer then informed Tyntek that the family intended to pursue a civil case and would be open to a settlement. MECO posed no objection, despite the contents of the September 14 text message from Marquez Jr. The family intends to push for a criminal case, although it must await the decision of the Miaoli District Prosecutors Office on whether to file criminal charges.

The involvement of NGOs, and the associated lawyers, proves necessary to even out the balance of power. Workers and their families cannot trust MECO—which must also maintain strong relationships with brokers, employers and the Taiwan government to maintain high migrant worker quotas—to stand behind their citizens.

Deserie: A sister mourned

Deserie Castro Tagubasi, the fifth of nine siblings, had come to Taiwan lured by the chance to earn a far better wage than at her previous job as a sales assistant in Manila. Deserie’s eldest brother, Danilo, had funded her college studies in computer science. Now, she felt it was her turn to help the family.

Deserie sent part of each month’s salary to her parents. She hoped they might build a new house, along with supporting her youngest brother, who is training to become a teacher.

She planned to marry her boyfriend, RJ, who is also from Isabela and works in Taiwan. She had spoken to Danilo, her brother, of the possibility of resettling back in Isabela, then perhaps seeking work in Canada. She was just 28 days from the end of her contract when her life was cut short.

During their last moments with Deserie in Taiwan, the family was clearly still coming to terms with her death. Hours after the meeting with MECO, they wept by their sister’s coffin as it was prepared for repatriation.

Deserie’s coworkers and her boyfriend, RJ, pay their respects. Also pictured: A Tong Xu of the HOPE Workers Center.

Deserie’s body is carried away. Tyntek was responsible for repatriation expenses.

Deserie’s family faced enormous pressure to handle the aftermath of her death and to ensure they would retain the right to pursue legal action against Tyntek. Taiwanese authorities could have intervened to update the family on the investigation, inform them of their rights, or assign a civil servant to assist them in navigating the process.

Instead, they did nothing.

The MOL said it was outside their purview to provide support or information to the family of the deceased, or to inform them of how to receive timely updates on the investigation. Despite this, regulations ensured that MOL officials kept Tyntek informed at all stages.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor has been accused by NGOs, international watchdogs and Taiwan’s Control Yuan of devoting insufficient resources to conducting welfare checks, safety inspections, and robust evaluations of brokers. By being entirely absent from any role of assistance for Deserie’s family, Taiwan’s government is failing them, along with all overseas foreign workers, as they struggle to come to terms with their devastating loss.

Deserie with her nephews at home in Christmas 2015. (Photo courtesy of Tagubasi family)

(All photos by Cat Thomas unless otherwise noted)

Read Part 1 of this story: How a Factory Worker Lost Her Life at Taiwan’s Tyntek, Home to a Culture of Negligence