Support the Workers of Far Eastern International Garments, Inc. (FEIGI)

To:  Douglas Tong Hsu, Tony Lian

Douglas Tong Hsu
Chairman of the Board
Far Eastern Group
32nd Floor, 207 Tunhwa S. Road
Sec. 2 Taipei
Taiwan


A Letter of Appeal to Mr. Douglas Hsu

I am a friend to the workers of Far Eastern International Garments, Inc. (FEIGI) in Las Piñas City, Philippines which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of one of your companies, Malaysia Garment Manufacturers Pte. Ltd., and part of the larger Far Eastern Group conglomerate of which you are the Chairman and CEO.

It has come to my attention that your management has decided to temporarily shut down FEIGI from April 7 to May 3 this year due to a delay in the delivery of raw materials needed for production. I am dismayed that your management decided on this course of action without following the required 30-day notification period, thus, denying your workers an opportunity to prepare for this major economic dislocation. This is made worse by your company’s refusal to provide any sort of financial assistance to the more than 400 affected workers whose only source of livelihood is their meager wages.

This is deplorable considering that most of these workers are already in debt since the daily wages they receive from FEIGI only average PhP 460 (US$ 11) for regular workers and P360 (US$ 8.6) for contract workers. This is way below the family living wage which is estimated to be PhP 853 (US$ 20) per day according to the Philippine government, even before factoring in the recent steep increases in the price of rice, food and petroleum products which are pushing up living costs in the Philippines to intolerable levels.

I believe that this is a grave injustice to your workers who have served in your company with sincerity and diligence for many years. Surely their efforts have contributed to FEG’s accumulated assets worth over US$33 billion, and have been instrumental in making you the 707th wealthiest billionaire in the world.

I therefore urge you to grant your workers what is their due, in the interest of fairness and justice. This means stopping the illegal shutdown of FEIGI and ensuring that the livelihood of your workers will not be disrupted. If and when FEIGI is shutdown, I strongly urge you to grant your workers adequate financial assistance to cover the needs of their families, especially since this is due to no fault on their part. I also call on your management to respect workers’ right to job security, union security and other democratic rights.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Support the Workers of Far Eastern International Garments, Inc. (FEIGI) Petition to Douglas Tong Hsu, Tony Lian was created by and written by Buddy Carranza (plmfeigi@gmail.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.