◎ Shen Quancheng
According to the Ministry of Interior's statistics on the "three-stage age population, percentage and dependency ratio" at the end of 2025, Yunlin County's dependency ratio is as high as 47.67, ranking fourth highest in the country, and the aging index is as high as 206.78, also ranking seventh in the country, for those aged 15 to The population aged 64 has dropped from 483,000 in 2018 to 440,000 in 2025. And this is just statistics. There are more Yunlin children whose household registration is still in Yunlin, but in fact they have already left their hometown to seek life in Taichung, Taozhu or Taipei.
It has been 25 years since the Japanese AGC Group came to Yunlin to set up a factory, and there has not been a single general inspection. The picture shows Shen Quancheng (2nd from left), chairman of the Aijexu Trade Union, launching an 80-hour hunger strike. (File photo)
The reason is very simple. It is because the wages of labor in Yunlin are too low. Young people looking for a way out either go to Liuqing Qingqing or run away. In June of this year, County Magistrate Zhang Lishan quoted data from the Accounting and Accounting Office, saying that the average annual total salary of full-time employees in Yunlin County in 2024 was 673,000. He even promoted on Facebook that "Yunlin has a good salary situation" and that the average salary is the highest among the tracking platforms in central China.
However, it can also be seen from the same data that the median total annual salary of Yunlin workers is actually only 533,000. The average salary is obviously driven up by chemical industry workers with an average annual salary of 980,000. Therefore, when our Aijexu labor union passed the strike vote with a consent rate of 96% in early September, the management came out and said that Aijixu employees have a minimum of 35,000 employees with 16 months of service, which is "upper-middle level." This is the real situation of Yunlin workers.
Frankly speaking, when the Japanese AGC Group came to Yunlin to set up a factory, everyone had expectations. They hoped that even if the factory treatment was not as good as Japan, it would still have the benefits and stable salary increase mechanism of Japanese-owned enterprises. Who would have thought that in the 25 years since the establishment of the factory, there has not been a single general inspection. Even when the basic salary is overtaken by the minimum wage, other allowances and bonuses will be diverted to make up for it.
Labor wages in Yunlin are so low that young people looking for a way out either go to Liuqing Lighting or run away. The picture shows the Yunlin County Government. (File photo)
In recent years, price and inflation pressures have been so strong, and the minimum wage has been rising. However, when the labor union proposed that the AGC Group's profits from 2023 to 2025 will exceed 120 billion yen, and the Japan Corporation will also help employees raise their salaries by 5% to 6% from 2022 to 2025, hoping to win a general increase of 5% for Taiwanese employees, they have not waited for a sincere answer from the company, and there is still no specific plan to respond to the demand for a comprehensive salary increase.
In the end, it was out of help that the union chose to protest and go on strike. In the final analysis, it just wanted employees to work hard in production. When the group was making money and Japanese employees were getting raises, Taiwanese workers could also get reasonable raises and raise the basic salary through general adjustments. After all, the minimum wage will exceed 30,000 yuan starting next year. Otherwise, without more reasonable salary packages, how can young people be willing to stay in Yunlin?
(The author is the chairman of Aijiexu Trade Union)
