An opposition legislator and an alliance promoting domestic help service legislation unveiled what they called "a workers' version" of a domestic service law yesterday.
Legislator Joanna Lei (雷倩) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the alliance, which was formed by the Taiwan International Workers' Association (TIWA) and other civic groups, called a press conference at the Legislative Yuan to call attention to the need for legislation to protect the rights of workers in the domestic service sector.
rights of workers
Lei noted that domestic helpers and caregivers are currently excluded from the nation's Basic Labor Law, which protects the basic rights of workers.
She added that "disadvantaged" foreign domestic helpers or caregivers sometimes suffer even more unfair treatment and abuses than their Taiwanese counterparts.
With the government stalled on such legislation, the alliance has worked with legislators to unveil the workers' version of a domestic service law in the hopes of prodding the government to act swiftly to come up with their own version, Lei said.
She said that society needs to learn to tolerate the ever increasing number of immigrants to Taiwan, whether they be foreign laborers or spouses of Taiwan nationals, and give them fair treatment lest they become a "time bomb" in society.
caregivers
Ku Yu-lin (顧玉玲), TIWA secretary-general, said that although the population of domestic helpers and caregivers in Taiwan is almost 300,000, with more than 130,000 of these being foreign laborers, they have no laws to protect them.
Ku said that the alliance completed the workers' version of a domestic help service law after more than two years of efforts.
The workers' version regulates the working conditions in the domestic service sector and sets out the responsibilities of laborers, employers and brokerage agencies.
Endorsement of the bill is currently being solicited from legislators from across the party spectrum, she added.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS