FEATURE: No holiday for many domestics

In Chinese societies, the most important festival is the Lunar New Year, when families reunite in a holiday atmosphere. Many migrant workers in Taiwan, however, do not have the luxury of a holiday.

Lunar New Year's day falls this year on Thursday and most people have six days off, although many workers from Southeast Asia will see their workloads increased, particularly the 160,000 domestic workers and caregivers who make up almost half of the 360,000 foreign laborers in Taiwan.

Such is the case for Mary, a young Indonesian who came to Taiwan one-and-a-half years ago. Working as a domestic helper, she starts her day at 6am by preparing breakfast, then goes to market, cleans the house and takes out the garbage. She doesn't get to call it a day until after 11pm.

Ostensibly hired to take care of an elderly member of her bosses family, in reality that is only a small portion of her strenuous workload.

Asked if she is allowed any days off, Mary said her employer deducts her daily wage of about NT$500 if she takes any time off, so she usually takes only two days off per month.

Lunar New Year is not a holiday for her. On the contrary, as family members of her employer get together for the traditional reunion, she will have an even heavier workload.

"What can I do? I came here to make money. Others [her compatriots] are in the same situation," Mary said resignedly, adding that a year-end bonus of just NT$5,000 is her only consolation.

Another Indonesian, Tina, came to Taiwan to look after an elderly stroke victim. Every night she has to turn the elderly person's body to prevent bedsores and do regular medical checks every 90 minutes, so she has hardly had a normal night's sleep in the past three years, not to mention the housework she must do in the daytime.

However, she still believes she made the right decision to come to work in Taiwan, saying that "it's easier to earn money here."

Another girl from the Philippines who has taken care of an elderly person for more than two years without a break received this year a red envelope containing a bonus of NT$10,000. But she confessed that she would prefer some days off instead.

Not all the guest workers have the luck to be hired by a generous or wealthy employer. Another Filipina, who requested anonymity, has just finished her three-year contract taking care of a sick elderly person and received a bonus of a paltry NT$300.

Asked why she does not want to renew her contract, she laughed: "I don't want to come back anymore! I really need a rest."

"Migrant caregivers are not covered by the Labor Standards Law (勞工基準法),"a social worker of the Taiwan International Workers' Association (TIWA) said, adding that "the Council of Labor Affairs [CLA] has promised to apply the law to these workers in two years, but as the CLA personnel have changed several times in recent years, we are not sure if the promise will be kept."

Last December, TIWA organized the third "I Want Days Off" demonstration with the participation of 1,600 demonstrators, to express their frustration and anger at not being protected by the Labor Standards Law.

While it is true that not all Southeast Asian people celebrate Lunar New Year, migrant workers are also deprived of vacations on other occasions as well, such as Christmas for Catholics from the Philippines, Songkran for Thai and Cambodian people, and Al Hijra for Indonesian Muslims.

As people in Taiwan celebrate Lunar New Year, a little care or love for their foreign workers might make their celebrations more significant, TIWA said.