As Taiwan and the nations that provide the bulk of foreign domestic helpers prepare to discuss a wage increase for the workers, Minister of Labor Chen Hsiung-wen (陳雄文) yesterday said that their wages are not pegged to the domestic basic salary.
“The monthly minimum wage for local workers has increased by 26 percent in recent years, while the basic pay for foreign domestic helpers has been frozen for 18 years, which is not reasonable,” Chen said.
Last month, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand jointly asked Taiwan to raise the minimum monthly pay of their domestic helpers in Taiwan from NT$15,840 to NT$17,500.
“A 7 percent increase would push the monthly wage of foreign domestic helpers to almost NT$17,000, but we will try to find a balance somewhere in the middle, as they have requested a raise of 11 percent,” Chen said.
“We might offer a 6 percent increase of NT$1,000 per month and will discuss the issue with these countries next week to reach an agreement,” he added. “However, their pay is not pegged to the local minimum monthly wage, despite their request for an increase in pay.”
Ministry of Labor statistics showed that as of the end of January, there were 556,412 foreign workers in Taiwan, with 208,486 employed as caregivers or domestic helpers. Of that number, 175,000 were domestic helpers from Indonesia, making it the largest source of such workers in Taiwan.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching