A Ministry of Labor promise to assist foreign laborers seeking a new employer has been poorly executed, protesters said yesterday, calling on the government to act as the agency for foreign labor contracts.
“After the passage of amendments to the Employment Service Act (就業服務法), the implementation has been a mess, with all of kinds of loopholes and a lack of oversight,” Taiwan International Workers’ Association member Susan Chen (陳素香) said, citing problems with the ministry’s Web site, which is intended to allow potential employers to directly contact foreign laborers whose contracts are due to expire.
“The amendments were passed in November last year, but the Web site is in complete disarray, with only an extremely small number of workers’ names posted,” Chen said.
A view of the Web site yesterday found 92 names of workers nearing the ends of their contracts, with Chen saying that at least 118 names — belonging to Indonesian workers employed by Hwang Chang — were missing.
Revisions to the Employment Service Act were intended to empower foreign laborers and cut their agency fees by removing the requirement that they leave the nation at the conclusion of their contract, which previously subjected them to having to pay another set of agency fees before continuing their employment in Taiwan.
Chen said that the language barrier and poor implementation has forced many workers to continue relying on agencies when they switch employers.
Agencies have little incentive to help the workers, unless they are paid illegal extra fees, she said, alleging that domestic agencies often receive the lion’s share of fees collected by their foreign counterparts to whom they provide quotas.
Domestic labor agencies are banned from collecting fees for arranging employment, while fees for other services are tightly regulated.
“We are in the process of asking the contractor to investigate the problems with the system,” Workforce Development Agency section chief Hsueh Chien-chung (薛鑑忠) said, adding that the agency had received the paperwork for the Hwang Chang workers and was unsure why their information had not appeared online.
The ministry has asked the New Taipei City Government to investigate allegations the workers were deceived about the length of their contracts and would allow them additional time to switch employers if the allegations were found to be true, Hsueh said, adding that a decision would be made before the workers’ contracts expire next month.
The ministry would investigate any allegations of illegal fee payments if it is provided with evidence, he said.
The ministry is only empowered to assistant Taiwanese looking for employment, he said, ruling out the ministry assuming the functions of a foreign labor agency.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
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