A labor group yesterday urged the Council of Labor Affairs to look into the reasons for a high runaway rate among Vietnamese migrant workers.
"The council must find out why these Vietnamese workers are running away from their jobs and resolve the problems, instead of simply looking at statistics and shaking their heads," said Chen Su-hsiang (
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The issue of runaway Vietnamese workers, which was 9.39 percent of the total in August, has led to a meeting today between Vietnamese officials and council officials to discuss possible solutions.
According to Chen, one of the reasons that many Vietnamese workers leave is because many who came to work as caregivers were told to do domestic chores as well as work in employers' factories.
"Besides doing extra work, which is against the law, these workers might even face sexual abuse. However, due to their meek nature and language barriers, these Vietnamese workers, who are often women, carry heavy burdens on their shoul-ders. Once they run into problems, they have few means of seeking help since they do not speak Chinese and few people in Taiwan speak Vietnamese," Chen said. As a result, Chen said, many Vietnamese workers leave their jobs.
"The point I want to stress is that the CLA should be accountable for importing these foreign workers, and complementary measures should be implemented to ensure their well-being. These are humans who are imported, not goods," Chen said.
Chen said that simply adding more countries to those allowed to export workers to Taiwan will not help the runaways situation.
"This year, Mongolian migrant workers have been imported. However, have any labor laws been translated into Mongolian? Now the council is preparing for the arrival of workers from Bangladesh; are they planning to train bilingual staff to communicate with these workers?" Chen said. "In my opinion, complementary measures should be devised before these workers are sent over."
A council official responded that one of the reasons for Vietnamese workers' high runaway rate is that Vietnamese officials have not provided good management or training for workers.
"The Philippine and Thai governments provide informational sessions to their workers prior to and upon their arrival here. For instance, the Philippine government educates their workers about Taiwanese labor laws, provides a channel where their workers can file complaints and encourages the workers to work hard," said Tsai Meng-liang (
As of August 31, the runaway rates among the Philippine and Thai workers are the lowest of any nationality: 2.5 percent and 1.6 percent respectively.
Tsai said the Vietnamese government has not provided similar services to their workers, and the meeting today will to seek to resolve these concerns.
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