Foreign migrant workers' advocacy groups yesterday filed a petition at the Executive Yuan to abolish a six-year time limit for employing foreign migrant workers.
"This restriction is rather puzzling to us, as it is unheard of in other places. Hong Kong and Singapore have set quotas for incoming migrant workers, but never an employment time-limit restriction," said Ku Yu-Ling (顧玉玲), secretary-general of the Taiwan International Migrants' Association.
As Dec. 18 is International Migrants Day, a group called Promoting Alien for Household Services Act yesterday gathered over 30 foreign workers, including blue and white-collar professions, to fight for three rights: working rights, immigration rights and the right of political participation.
At the Executive Yuan, the group was received by representatives from the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) and the National Police Administration.
The MOI's department of household administration, which is responsible for drafting a comprehensive immigration policy, stated that it would consider including migrant workers in the policy.
"Although no conclusion was reached during today's meeting in regard to our three calls, I was pleased with the government's sincerity in having invited several cross-administration representatives to talk to us," Ku said.
In response, the CLA said that the purpose of the six-year restriction was to curb immigration by long-term residents -- previously, they could apply for naturalization -- and to prevent a loss of revenues. Fees paid by employers who hire foreign migrant workers are reduced over time.
Article 52 of the Employment Service Law (就業服務法) stipulates that a blue-collar foreign worker cannot be employed here for more than an accumulated six years.
"This law was enacted before the amendment to the Immigration Law (
Furthermore, Liao added, a company that has employed a foreign worker for more than five consecutive years is entitled to pay lower fees and other benefits.
As immigration problems are no longer a concern, Liao said the elimination of the six-year employment restriction was likely.
Liao said differences in policies governing the employment of blue and white-collar foreign workers did not indicate discrimination.
"The importation of blue-collar foreign worker has been a supplementary policy, where supply meets demand ... the employment of white-collar foreigner workers has been policy for societal-effectiveness," Liao said.
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:
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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