Starting Sept. 1, foreign laborers, their agencies and employers must sign an affidavit confirming a common understanding of wages and agency fees, the Council of Labor Affairs said yesterday.
The affidavit will be available in five languages: English, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian and Mongolian, and will be signed by the prospective employee, his or her employer, the agency in the employee's native country and the local agency involved, the council said.
The affidavit must then be submitted together with other necessary documents before the laborer enters the country.
"Many foreign laborers borrow money from agencies in their native countries [which are then deducted from subsequent earnings], and this sometimes leads to disputes," said Chen Po-yi (陳博宜), an official at the council's department of foreign labor affairs.
"The affidavit will list all relevant expenses in black and white for all parties involved," Chen said.
Financial obligations referred to in the affidavit include placement fees imposed by the agency in the employee's home country, fees imposed by the home country (such as for a physical examination) money borrowed from creditors prior to arrival, the wage to be earned, fees paid to agencies here and government fees imposed in this country (such as insurance).
"Should a dispute arise over an excessive service fee, agencies in Taiwan and in the home country of the employee can easily place blame on one another. It is then difficult for the labor authorities to figure out who is responsible for the problem," Chen said.
According to labor guidelines, the highest service fee a local employment agency can impose on a foreign laborer is NT$1,800 per month in the first year of employment, NT$1,700 per month in the second year and NT$1,500 per month in the third.
"These are the highest amounts that the labor rules can allow. Of course, if an agency wants to charge less, it is free to state this in the affidavit," Chen said.
According to the affidavit form, if an employment agency abroad or in this country fails to charge fees in accordance with the law, the employee can file a complaint with the council by telephone.
For English-speaking assistance, the number is 0800-885-885. For Thai, 0800-885-995. For Indonesian, 0800-885-958. And for Vietnamese, 0800-017-858.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not