Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: WC-QHS/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0
IN A SURPRISE MOVE, Giant Bicycle products manufactured in Taiwan have been blocked by US Customs and Border Protection on the basis of evidence of forced labor. The ban applies to bicycles, bicycle parts, and accessories, and takes place through a Withhold Release Order.
The ban only seems to apply to Giant Bicycle products manufactured in Taiwan. Giant Bicycle, as its name suggests, is the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer. Giant Group also operates factories in China, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Vietnam. According to Taiwanese labor groups, this is the first case of a Withhold Release Order targeting a Taiwanese company by the US Customs and Border Protection.
The Withhold Release Order is on the basis of investigations conducted by the US Customs and Border Protection, which found evidence of debt bondage, overwork, denial of wages, and abusive working conditions. It is mostly migrant workers from Southeast Asia who endure such conditions in factories of Taiwanese manufacturers such as Giant.
Otherwise, the US Department of Labor has sometimes been a useful source of external pressure to push for changes in the highly exploitative area of migrant work in Taiwan. For example, Taiwanese fish was previously included by the US Department of Labor on the list of products produced by forced labor. For this reason, Taiwan’s fishing fleet also faced a yellow card from the European Union.
Despite the Trump administration’s apparent lack of interest in global human rights, evidently, external pressure can still occur. At the same time, one notes that the Withhold Release Order contains language that frames Giant Bicycle as undercutting American products through unfair forced labor practices. Specifically, the order states that the company’s actions “resul[t] in goods produced below market value and undercutting American businesses by millions of dollars in unjustly earned profits.”
Given that Giant Bicycle is a major Taiwanese company that is an internationally recognized brand, it is to be seen what impact the ban has on Taiwan. Certainly, it can be expected that Giant Group will take steps to get the ban lifted, as the company has already stated it will. As Giant Group is hardly alone among Taiwanese companies in employing migrant workers in conditions that can be termed forced labor, particularly pertaining to the broker system, it is to be seen if the US moves on to target other industries. Under the current broker system, employment brokers arrange migrant workers’ transportation to and employment in Taiwan, but migrant workers have to take out exorbitant debts in order to pay for this. Migrant workers then are often employed under conditions in which wages are withheld.
Taiwanese labor groups, such as the Taiwan Labour Front, have cited the decision by US Customs and Border Protection as further highlighting that the Taiwanese government needs to take action. Such action would aim to bring Taiwan’s migrant worker recruitment practices in line with global practices in the US and the European Union regarding fair recruitment and ethical supply chains.
Failure to take action would lead to Taiwanese companies risking being excluded from the global market. Moreover, to further combat the issue of wrongs committed by Taiwanese companies abroad, the Taiwan Transnational Corporations Watch was formed by a coalition of seven groups in past years. But labor groups have criticized the government for failing to take action on ethical supply chains that were promised for 2024, particularly seeing as an action plan was originally announced in 2020 but has not been implemented.
At the same time, one notes there are risks that Taiwanese companies see the move as in line with efforts by the Trump administration to pressure Taiwan, rather than a genuine sign that improvements need to be made in terms of labor rights. Taiwanese companies have historically failed to understand what constitutes forced labor. This was especially visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, when companies saw no issues with locking workers in dormitories and carrying out such a lockdown in cooperation with local authorities.