Labor law and migrants
The legislature has started reviewing the draft amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法). Led by the Migrants Empowerment Network in Taiwan, nearly 100 workers staged a protest in front of the Legislative Yuan to show their discontent with the draft.
According to a statement by the group, the blue-collar migrant workers at the bottom of Taiwan’s society will be the first to suffer when the draft is passed.
The network argues that the language barrier and insufficient information are making it impossible for migrant workers to hold equal negotiations with employers, although the government has said that it is relaxing conditions and that this will be controlled through talks between employers and employees.
The group also said that although the government is making a strong push for its New Southbound Policy, it has failed to provide migrant workers with translations of the draft amendments, completely ignoring their contributions to Taiwanese society, only considering employers’ interests and ignoring the current situation, which is turning Taiwan into an island of overwork.
Since the five-day workweek came into effect at the end of last year, companies’ labor costs have increased due to increased overtime pay, as well as two different ways of calculating overtime pay for overtime on working days and overtime on rest days.
Due to the high overtime pay, many factories are no longer willing to make employees work overtime.
Migrant workers, who mostly serve as production line operators, have come all the way to Taiwan just to earn money. As they are unable to earn overtime pay under the new policy, they have no choice but to take the risk of working illegally as part-timers in rural villages or in restaurants.
Many are caught by the police and their employers are fined.
I-Mei Foods Co general manager Kao Chih-ming (高志明) in June said that some workers and working single parents want to make extra money by working overtime, but that they are unable to do so due to legal restrictions.
The draft amendments are likely to address the issue of employers being unwilling to let employees work overtime.
Moreover, according to the Ministry of Labor’s second-quarter data on the number of labor unions, there are only 1,098 industrial and business labor unions in Taiwan.
Due to the shortage of local workers, migrant workers account for 40 percent of the total number of employees in the manufacturing and high-tech sectors.
That being so, migrant workers are in fact in a stronger position than local workers in those sectors when negotiating with employers for working conditions.
Huang Chen-lun
New Taipei City
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not