Institutional Gains, Organizational Weakness: The Legacy of Labor Struggles in Taiwan

Shu-Wei Yang - Secretary-General of the Taiwan Labour Front 

Taiwan’s contemporary labor struggles cannot be understood without revisiting the historical trajectory of its labor movement. The past has not only shaped the rights workers possess today, but also defined the strategies, limitations, and contradictions that continue to characterize labor activism.

Under martial law, imposed on May 19, 1949, labor movements in Taiwan were subject to strict state control. Unions were not autonomous organizations representing workers’ interests, but rather extensions of the state apparatus. Union leaders often required approval from internal surveillance units embedded within workplaces—offices responsible for monitoring political loyalty and ideological conformity. As a result, unions during this period were widely referred to as “Puppet unions,” lacking both independence and bargaining power.

It was not until the lifting of martial law on July 15, 1987, after 38 years, that Taiwan’s labor movement entered a new phase. Workers began to organize more independently, seeking to reclaim unions as vehicles for collective representation. In the late 1980s, waves of labor unrest emerged across the island, with workers demanding year-end bonuses and basic labor protections.

However, these struggles were shaped not only by newly opened political space, but also by the lingering fear of authoritarian repression. Decades of martial law had left a deep imprint on society, and many workers remained cautious about engaging in confrontational or disruptive forms of protest. Given the long-standing gap between legal standards and workplace reality, and the persistence of this political fear, many of these struggles took the form of what became known as “legalistic struggles” — workers mobilizing around the enforcement of existing labor laws rather than pursuing more radical or confrontational strategies.

This legacy continues to shape the orientation of Taiwan’s labor movement today. Compared to other contexts, labor activism in Taiwan remains relatively centered on legal action, policy advocacy, and institutional reform, rather than large-scale strikes or disruptive industrial action.

However, the momentum of the post-martial law labor movement was soon met with significant repression and structural change. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, both the state and employers moved to contain the growing labor movement. Union leaders were dismissed, organizations fragmented, and key allies expelled. In 1989, Fr. Neil Magill, a Catholic priest who had long supported labor activism, was deported. Shortly after, Fr. José Ellacuría , who founded the Hsinchu Labor Center, was also forced to leave Taiwan.

At the same time, Taiwan’s economic transformation profoundly reshaped labor struggles. With the rise of China and Southeast Asia, capital rapidly relocated abroad, leading to widespread factory closures. In 1990, Premier Hau Pei-tsun — a career military officer who had long served as one of the most powerful figures in Taiwan’s armed forces and was widely associated with the authoritarian security apparatus of the martial law era — publicly declared a crackdown on what he labeled “social movement hooligans,” targeting labor, environmental, and farmers’ movements. Under these pressures, unions increasingly shifted from proactive organizations advocating for better working conditions to reactive bodies handling layoffs, unpaid wages, and severance disputes.

If the labor upsurge after 1987 symbolized workers “standing up,” then the struggles of the 1990s and beyond resembled an effort to avoid being pushed further back. The experience of mass layoffs transformed unions into crisis-response organizations — a pattern that continues to constrain workplace-level organizing today.

In addition, legal requirements further constrain organizing. Under current regulations, a minimum of 30 workers is required to establish a union. Given that Taiwan’s economy is characterized by a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, many workplaces simply do not meet this threshold, effectively excluding a significant portion of workers from formal union representation.

As a result, even where labor disputes are widespread, they often remain fragmented and individualized rather than developing into collective struggles. This structural weakness helps explain why institutional reforms have not been matched by an expansion of grassroots labor power.

This apparent contradiction reflects a deeper structural dynamic. The democratization of Taiwan opened new institutional channels for participation, allowing labor groups to achieve policy gains through legislative advocacy, lobbying, and public campaigns. However, this “success within the system” has not been accompanied by a corresponding expansion of grassroots organizing. As a result, labor movements have become more effective in shaping laws than in building sustained worker power at the workplace level.

This limitation is even more pronounced in today’s labor landscape. The rise of precarious employment, migrant labor, and platform-based work has further fragmented the workforce, making traditional forms of union organizing more difficult. Without sufficient representation at the enterprise or industry level, everyday labor conflicts often fail to be resolved through collective mechanisms, ultimately affecting the substantive functioning of democracy in the social and economic spheres.

In this sense, past struggles in Taiwan have shaped not only what workers can demand, but also how they are able to fight. The legacy of “legalistic struggle,” the transformation of unions during industrial restructuring, and the emphasis on institutional reform have together produced a labor movement that is deeply embedded in formal politics, yet relatively weak in workplace mobilization. Today, the challenge for Taiwan’s labor movement is not simply to win new rights, but to rebuild collective power under new economic conditions—and to bridge the enduring gap between rights on paper and power in practice.