After spirited debate, the legislature's Health, Environment and Social Welfare Committee yesterday agreed to extend the maximum allowable stay for foreign laborers to nine years from the previous maximum of six years.
The new limit will apply to all blue-collar and domestic workers pending second and third readings in the legislature.
The original proposal by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) and Wang Shu-hui (王淑慧) called for the limit to be scrapped altogether, as the lawmakers argued that the change would increase productivity.
"We have foreign laborers to thank for the fact that we still have a manufacturing industry here in Taiwan. We have to thank them for generating jobs for Taiwanese, not taking jobs away," Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Huang Chung-yung (
Huang cited the case of CLC Industrial, a maker of nuts and fasteners that has remained in Taiwan while many competitors decamped for Indonesia or China.
"My business hit rock-bottom in 1990 because of the difficulty in finding enough Taiwanese workers," said Richard Chen (陳永和), general manager of CLC industrial. "I was on the verge of going out of business before I turned to foreign workers."
"Now I employ six foreign workers ... and 40 Taiwanese," Chen said.
Workers only come into their own after years of training, Chen said, meaning that Taiwanese factory owners lose highly valued employees if the workers have to leave after six years.
"I've heard that Korean factory-owners pay a US$100 a month premium for workers who have previously worked in Taiwan. They are benefiting from the workers we trained," he said.
In addition to industrial workers, Huang said the rule change was also important for Taiwanese families who employ domestic workers from abroad.
"For some elderly people, it is difficult to get used to a new caretaker," he said.
However, other legislators as well as Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) representatives were concerned that allowing foreign laborers to stay indefinitely would pose social and human-rights problems.
CLA Deputy Chairman Tsao Ai-lan (曹愛蘭) cited the situation in Germany, where he said "guest workers" had developed into a poorly integrated immigrant population.
DPP Legislator Huang Sue-ying (
"It's arrogant to say that because we have the money we can keep people away from their families for as long as we want. That is taking advantage of their economic desperation," she said.
However, she described her position as "conflicted," saying that she understood the desires of Taiwanese families and employers to hang on to their foreign employees for longer.
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