Meanwhile, the CLA is moving ahead with reform plans, said Tsai Meng-liang (蔡孟良), the director of the council's Foreign Labor Section. These include a system where foreign workers are called to see if they signed anything under duress and, if that is the case, are provided with shelter and a chance to find another job in Taiwan. It has also proposed stricter licensing requirements for brokers and is considering ways to ease direct hiring rules so that employers can bypass brokers altogether.
The CLA has also set up a booth at CKS International Airport, where foreigners can report mistreatment before they return home. As brokers frequently accompany workers to the airport, Tsai said there are phones beyond the customs check that foreigners can also use. The number is (03) 398-3976. These services have been used 153 times so far this year.
And since 2001, brokers have been encouraged to use a voluntary affidavit, in which workers list expenses and loans owed before leaving their home countries. “We are the only country that does this,” said Tsai, who was interviewed Friday at the CLA's headquarters in Taipei, although an attorney at the Legal Aid Society could not say how this would prevent the broker from listing false loans in the document.
But some proposed measures would not favor migrant workers. The CLA has announced its intention to abolish the monthly minimum wage of NT$15,840 (US$483) for foreigner workers. It has also proposed spending NT$500 million (US$15.27 million) to issue integrated-circuit ID cards to foreigners to prevent them from “committing crimes” and “ensuring national security.”
Despite this mixed record, an official at the Manilla Economic and Cultural Office (MECO), which represents the Philippines in Taiwan, expressed optimism for the future.
“(The CLA's) intentions are good,” said Reynaldo Gopez, MECO's labor representative. “But it will take time, as is the case with all bureaucracies.”
And he believes the government will eventually pass the proposed Household Services Act, which would provide protections for local and foreign maids similar to those in the Labor Standards Law.
This will be too late to help people like Mary, who has six months remaining in her contract. Of the 43 Filipina maids who live in her part of Taipei's Xinyi District, only four have one day off per week. More than 23 never have a day off, 12 get one day off a month and four get two.
Of these, one works for a famous singer, another for a diplomat who represents a wealthy Asian country. A third regularly cleans six houses. A fourth, who works for a member of the Legislative Yuan, is illegally employed in the woman's office.
Dogs, children and the elderly are their “passports” to the outside world. “My situation is so hard,” Mary said. “I can only go outside if I take the grandmother with me.”
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