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Funny
Competition Between Labor and Management: You Have Me in You
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TAIWAN
/ 1998 / Taiwanese / Color / Video / 136 min
Director, Photography, Editing: Lo Shin-chieh (A-KAI)
Script: Wang Hsiu-ling
Sound: Chen Guo-wei
Source: Lo Shin-chieh
209, Kong-Yuan N. Rd, Tainan City TAIWAN
Phone: 886-6-2227422
Fax: 886-6-2215122
E-mail: akai8128@ms32.hinet.net
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Lo Shin-chieh (A-kai)
Even before the lifting of martial law, A-kai was already active in
Taiwan's opposition politics. Over the last ten years he took part
in numerous demonstrations and protest rallies. He is an independent
filmmaker who has recorded Taiwan's political events and social movements
over this period on film. Before taking up the camera, he was a salesman
of photographic equipment, a performer in labor activist plays, and
had experience as a hair stylist and makeup artist. A-kai's dedication
to documentary filmmaking probably derives from his pursuit of social
justice. This is his second film on labor issues to win an award in
Taiwan. It was almost two years in the filming. |
An engaging film, as the title suggests, depicting the complex relations
between parties involved in a labor dispute. A self-organized non-union
group of workers struggles to regain infringed rights in the wake
of a factory closure. A soft-spoken woman is pushed to the front as
its leader, while bigshots in business suits from political parties
and bureaucracy come and go, all claiming to be sincerely concerned
with the workers' plight. Amidst confusion and shifting opinions,
the dispute goes on, and the camera continues to record a very affectionate
portrait of the people involved.
Director's
Statement
Taiwan's industrial development of the last three decades has been
called an "economic miracle." However, in the last decade, labor-intensive
industries have been closing in numbers and moving production to Southeast
Asia and China, while claiming bankruptcy in order to avoid paying
pensions and other benefits to maturing workers. The Oriental Knitting
Corporation of Tainan is such a case.
Due to crippled execution of the law and inept bureaucracy, as well
as exploitation by capitalists, labor struggles have never ceased
in Taiwan. A laborer cried out loud in protest, "We have our own rights,
and we do not want anybody from the government to kill our rights!"
The issue in this film is the struggle of 300-some workers, mostly
factory workers, for their full pensions and severance pay after the
closure of Oriental Knitting Corporation in November 1996. At the
end of the film, an agreement is reached - but their pensions remain
to date unpaid.
Two years and three chairmen of the Council of Labor Affairs later,
the Oriental dispute continues. Each time Ms. Chu, the leader of the
worker's self-help group calls, she is asked to wait. Three labor
movement representatives have come and gone, as have numerous assembly
representatives. "We really have to help ourselves," say the workers.
The road is long, but they are still here.
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COPYRIGHT:Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival Organizing Committee
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