Strike at AGC Display Glass ends with deal

Workers at AGC Display Glass Taiwan Inc (艾杰旭顯示玻璃) in Yunlin County ended their four-day strike yesterday evening after reaching an agreement with management on wage increases for next year and 2028, the company’s union said.

All employees at the company’s plant in Douliu City (斗六) would receive an across-the-board monthly base salary increase of NT$1,200 (US$37.58) in each of the two years, while management has agreed to negotiate further raises for 2029 and 2030, the union said in a statement.

The agreement was reached late on Wednesday following seven hours of negotiations and was ratified at a meeting of union representatives yesterday morning.

AGC Display Glass Taiwan Inc management and labor union representatives sign a deal on Wednesday.

Photo courtesy of the Yunlin County Government

The union said that the strike, which began at 8am on Monday, was to conclude at 5:30pm yesterday.

Union chairman Shen Chuan-cheng (沈全成) said the agreement also included provisions to retain cost-of-living allowances and adjust salary caps.

The company also agreed not to take punitive action against employees who participated in the strike, said Yunlin County Labor and Youth Affairs Development Department Director Chang Shih-chung (張世忠), who helped mediate the dispute.

AGC Display Glass vice president Cheng Wen-yuan (鄭文遠) said that the two sides had originally planned to negotiate wage increases for four years, but agreed to hold further talks at the end of 2028 due to uncertainty over inflation and minimum wage adjustments.

More than 500 union members began the strike at the company’s plant in Douliu on Monday.

They demanded annual across-the-board pay increases of 5 to 6 percent, comparable to the annual raises the union said employees at its Japanese parent company, AGC Inc, had received.

The NT$1,200 increase next year represents a raise of about 4 percent for most workers, whose monthly base salaries are approximately NT$30,000, union secretary-general Wu Chia-hung (吳嘉浤) said.

The Douliu plant employs about 1,400 workers, all Taiwanese nationals, of whom about 950 are union members, Wu said.

The union said the Taiwanese subsidiary had not established a regular across-the-board wage adjustment mechanism for 25 years, despite repeated requests and negotiations.

Initially planned to last two and a half days, the strike was extended on Wednesday afternoon after more than 350 union members signed a petition calling for the action to continue.

Describing the settlement as “an important achievement,” the union urged the company’s managers to place greater emphasis on workers’ rights and share company profits with rank-and-file employees.

The Ministry of Labor yesterday afternoon said that it welcomed the agreement, praising the union for returning to the negotiating table in good faith and management for responding constructively to reach “a compromise balancing business operations and workers’ rights.”

The strike, which the union described as the first in Yunlin County’s history, was also the second labor strike in Taiwan to end this week, following a five-day strike by workers at snack maker Kuai Kuai Co (乖乖) in Taoyuan.