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Government not satisfied with Bangkok's response

The Council of Labor Affairs, apparently unsatisfied with Thailand's explanation of why it rejected a visa for CLA Chairwoman Chen Chu (陳菊), said yesterday it would start requiring Taiwanese employers to specify from which country they want to hire laborers.

The move came despite an apology yesterday from the Thai Foreign Ministry, which blamed the diplomatic row on a "miscommunication."

A wire service report from Bangkok quoted Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Rattakit Manathat as saying, "We regret it [the miscommunication] and realize that such a thing should not have happened."

He added that his government would be sending a letter to Taiwan explaining its position.

However, the Taipei Economic and Trade Office in Thailand said it knew of no such letter and did not believe that the Thai government's responses were sincere.

"The Thai government has avoid answering all the questions raised by us," said a senior official at the representative office, who wished to remain anonymous. "With the Thai government's attitude as it is, I really don't know how the two sides can get back to ... the negotiations."

The diplomatic spat began last week after Thailand refused to issue a visa to Chen to witness the signing of a bilateral labor pact on the Thai island of Phuket.

The CLA says Chen had received an invitation to the event on Aug. 6.

In response, the CLA decided to indefinitely postpone the signing of the pact.

On Friday, the CLA threatened further action unless the Thai government came up with a reasonable explanation by yesterday.

Options that officials said they were considering included decreasing the quota of Thai laborers in Taiwan, rejecting new visa applications for Thai laborers and more strictly reviewing their visa applications.

Although it did not take any drastic measures, the council said yesterday it would start enforcing a regulation that Taiwanese employers who want foreign laborers would have to specify on the application from which country they are coming.

Employers have to apply for permission from the CLA to hire foreign laborers before going to brokers to find them, and up to now they have frequently failed to specify the country of origin of laborers they want to employ.

That the CLA will now enforce a regulation it has ignored for more than a decade suggests it may be considering further action.

However, Kuo Fang-yu (郭芳煜), director-general of the council's employment and vocational training administration, declined to say if the council would go further, saying, "We just want to understand the market for foreign laborers better."

Kuo also denied a report from the state-funded Central News Agency that the CLA would tighten the screening of applications for laborers from Thailand.

Quoting sources in the employment and vocational training administration, which reviews applications for foreign laborers, CNA said officials would spend more time screening and considering applications.

The agreement the two countries were scheduled to sign would have allowed Taiwanese employers to hire Thais without going through brokerages, which can charge the laborers as much as NT$60,000 for their services.

There are about 130,000 Thais out of a total of 350,000 foreign workers in Taiwan.
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