Labor and civic groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to scrap clauses on reviewing standards for foreign workers that relax restrictions on hiring blue-collar migrant workers, saying that with such clauses the government is allowing employers to exploit foreign workers and deprive local workers of job opportunities.
Since the amendment of the Reviewing Standards and Employment Qualifications for Foreigners Engaging in the Jobs Specified in Items 8 to 11, Paragraph 1 to Article 46 of the Employment Service Act (外國人從事就業服務法第四十六條第一項第八款至第十一款工作資格及審查標準) was passed by executive order in March last year, the total number of foreign workers in the manufacturing industries has surged from 233,000 in April last year to 283,000 in May, the Taiwan Labour Front (TLF) said.
The revisions made to the reviewing standards for blue-collar foreign workers have lowered the threshold for employers to hire migrant workers under the guise of encouraging overseas Taiwanese businesspeople to return or any enterprises to increase their investments, the groups protesting outside the ministry building said.
Photo: Huang Pang-ping, Taipei Times
The government has become the enterprises’ lackey, fulfilling every demand requested by the “insatiable capitalists,” TLF secretary-general Son Yu-liam (孫友聯) said.
“We are calling for both the abrogation of the employer-favoring clauses that allow larger quotas — 40 percent at maximum — of lower-paid foreigners on their payroll, and the implementation of a policy that ensures the blue-collar foreign workers’ rights of ‘equal pay for equal work,’” Son added.
While the government has constantly insisted, and did so again yesterday, that the free economic pilot zones special statute says nothing about the relaxations and accused the groups of “deliberately conflating the two,” the groups said the government is guilty of equivocation.
“The amendments have been aimed for the project of the free economic pilot zones, which, despite being touted for its potential to attract top-notch service industries, would have manufacturers coming in as well,” Democratic Front Against Cross-strait Trade in Services Agreement convener Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) said, citing recent heatedly debated agricultural products processing businesses as an example.
Lai added that the “First Stage Plan of the free economic pilot zones” announced by the Executive Yuan explicitly includes the development of the free-trade port areas, to which various manufacturing enterprises plan to move.
“Together with the Ministry of Labor’s recent positive response to the capitalists’ demand to increase the maximum ratio of dispatch workers allowed in a company, the future of the free economic pilot zones is nothing but a pilot zone abounding with cheap labor from migrant workers and dispatched employees,” TLF Research Center director Hung Ching-shu (洪敬舒) said.
The groups are calling for the removal of the clauses granting the enterprises the right to hire more migrant workers before a review of the pilot zones special statute in the legislature.
SHIPS, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES: The ministry has announced changes to varied transportation industries taking effect soon, with a number of effects for passengers Beginning next month, the post office is canceling signature upon delivery and written inquiry services for international registered small packets in accordance with the new policy of the Universal Postal Union, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday. The new policy does not apply to packets that are to be delivered to China, the ministry said. Senders of international registered small packets would receive a NT$10 rebate on postage if the packets are sent from Jan. 1 to March 31, it added. The ministry said that three other policies are also scheduled to take effect next month. International cruise ship operators
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency yesterday launched a gift box to market honey “certified by a Formosan black bear” in appreciation of a beekeeper’s amicable interaction with a honey-thieving bear. Beekeeper Chih Ming-chen (池明鎮) in January inspected his bee farm in Hualien County’s Jhuosi Township (卓溪) and found that more than 20 beehives had been destroyed and many hives were eaten, with bear droppings and paw prints near the destroyed hives, the agency said. Chih returned to the farm to move the remaining beehives away that evening when he encountered a Formosan black bear only 20m away, the agency said. The bear
Chinese embassy staffers attempted to interrupt an award ceremony of an international tea competition in France when the organizer introduced Taiwan and displayed the Republic of China flag, a Taiwanese tea farmer said in an interview published today. Hsieh Chung-lin (謝忠霖), chief executive of Juxin Tea Factory from Taichung's Lishan (梨山) area, on Dec. 2 attended the Teas of the World International Contest held at the Peruvian embassy in Paris. Hsieh was awarded a special prize for his Huagang Snow Source Tea by the nonprofit Agency for the Valorization of Agricultural Products (AVPA). During the ceremony, two Chinese embassy staffers in attendance
RSS