Taipei City Councilor Yen Sheng-kuan (
But Rebecca Lee (
"Apart from illegal foreign manual laborers, there are more and more illegal foreign white-collar professionals invading our job market, and it has started to pose a serious problem," Yen said in a written statement released yesterday. "Taipei has more than 200 hotels, and it is highly possible that there are more out there doing the same thing," Yen said.
According to Yen, the Lai Lai not only employs unauthorized foreign workers, but it also intimidates employees who threaten to report the matter to authorities.
"Since the hotel has good connections with the authorities, it can afford to turn a deaf ear to its employees' complaints and allows its illegal foreign senior managers to profit at the expense of its local employees," Yen said.
The councilor said the hiring of unauthorized foreign workers diminishes employment opportunities for others.
But Lee said that the senior managers in question -- Mathew Arnold from Australia and Sebastian Courage from Britain -- were employed by Destination Marketing International, not the Lai Lai. Destination Marketing has been contracted by the hotel to issue hotel dining discount cards.
Lee said the hotel has been considering terminating the contract in October when the contract expires. She said there had been many disputes between the company and its employees.
"We've been doing what we can to help them," Lee said. "We'd like to make one thing clear here: that we don't have anything to do with the dispute nor do we have any direct supervision over its employees."
Chen Hung-chi (
If convicted, Arnold may face a three-year jail sentence or a fine of not less than NT$300,000.
Preliminary investigations show that Destination Marketing is a branch company of the Hong Kong-based Hotel Dynamics International Ltd, and Arnold appears to be the front man of the company, Chen said.
According to the latest figures supplied by the Employment and Vocational Training Administration, a record 309,424 foreigners were employed in Taiwan at the end of June, up from 294,967 at the start of this year.
The number of foreign workers deported because of criminal acts has been stable since 1995, with an average of 96 deportations a year.
However, in the five-month period between November last year to March this year, 7,900 foreigners were deported -- 1,900 more than usual -- or a 76 percent increase.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2