Following a recent string of mass protests, Taipei is set to be the scene of another huge demonstration tomorrow being organized in observance of International Workers’ Day and to demand that the government address the problem of low wages and scrap the dispatch worker system.
Tens of thousands of workers from around the nation are expected to hit the streets to attend a rally being organized under the theme of “opposing low wages and banning dispatching of workers” by dozens of labor groups, industrial unions and labor union federations.
During the protest, a march is to be led by a squad of atypical workers to highlight one of the organizers’ main appeals for the government to draft legislation prohibiting the use of dispatched workers, Taipei City Confederation of Trade Unions secretary-general Chiang Wan-chin (蔣萬金) said yesterday.
Chiang, who is to be in charge of the protest, said the government has paid no attention to the deterioration of wages and working conditions affecting many employees across most sectors nationwide, while the rapid increase in the number of dispatched workers and those employed for limited terms has exacerbated the stagnant salary problem.
Since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office, the unemployment rate among those aged 20 to 24 has risen to 13.75 percent, the second-highest level in the nation’s history, while the unemployment rate for college graduates consistently stands above 5 percent.
Despite the persistently high rate of youth unemployment, sources say that the government is planning to relax labor rules in an attempt to encourage children of overseas ethnic Chinese — defined as Chinese born abroad and studying at Taiwanese colleges and known commonly as qiaosheng (僑生) — and other foreign college students in Taiwan to stay and work in the country after graduating.
Currently the average monthly salary for qiaosheng and other foreign students who remain in Taiwan to work after finishing their studies must be least NT$37,619 and they are not required to have two years’ work experience to be employed in Taiwan.
Before these rules were adopted in June 2012, qiaosheng and other foreign students could only take a job with a starting salary of NT$47,971 and had to have least two years of work experience to be eligible to stay in Taiwan after graduating.
Sources have said that the Ministry of Labor Affairs is mulling removing the salary threshold and implementing the policy in June to benefit fresh graduates.
However, analysts say the rumored policy would have a crowding-out effect on Taiwanese youth by pushing down new graduates’ average monthly wages, which are already as low as NT$22,000, and could be a prelude to opening up the labor market fully to Chinese students in Taiwan, analysts had said.
According to the ministry, about 5,000 qiaosheng and other foreign students enroll at colleges or universities in Taiwan every year. After the rules on their employment were relaxed in 2012, about 1,274 of these students stayed in the nation after graduating, 36 percent of which came from Malaysia, 10 percent from Indonesia, 5 percent from the US and 3 percent from Japan, it added.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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