The government is planning to tighten restrictions on Chinese nationals traveling to Taiwan for training to prevent employers from using the trips as a guise to import cheap labor, Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) said yesterday.
The permitted length of stay for “research and study” purposes will be shortened from three months to one month, and the number of trainees will not be allowed to exceed a quarter of the total number of Chinese visitors invited to Taiwan for business purposes by the same employer in a single year, Wang said at a legislative hearing.
In addition, the length of training courses provided for the trainees cannot exceed four hours per day, she said.
Current regulations governing business visits by Chinese -nationals state that business owners, managers and skilled technicians can visit Taiwan at the invitation of Taiwanese organizations for purposes such as fact-finding missions, conferences, speeches, exhibitions and research and study.
Training falls under the category of research and study.
On Nov. 16, prosecutors raided a factory run by touch panel manufacturer Young Fast -Optoelectronics in Taoyuan County and found 28 Chinese nationals allegedly working on the production line in the guise of receiving training.
The raid was made in response to complaints by labor rights groups that the company was using training as a pretext to bring in cheap labor from China, with 18 Taiwanese workers allegedly being dismissed as a result.
Wang said the council had asked Young Fast to explain by Dec. 9 why it had dismissed the workers, adding that it had temporarily suspended the company’s right to hire foreign workers.
Young Fast yesterday again denied the allegations, saying that the high cost of bringing workers over from its China facilities to Taiwan for training for such a short period make it impossible for the company to use this as a pretext for importing Chinese workers.
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