The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) yesterday officially announced a halt to the importation of workers from Indonesia, as, it said, the Indonesian government has not made any attempt to solve the problem of increased rates of abscondence from Taiwan of its workers. A planned Taiwan-Indonesia bilateral workers affairs conference will be also postponed, the CLA said.
"After reviewing the increase in the number of Indonesian workers absconding, and in response to the Indonesian government's apparent desire to ignore the problem we decided to take the tough measure of halting imports right away," said Kuo Fang-yu (
Asked what he believed the Indonesian government could do, he said, "Anything that demonstrates its willingness to solve the problem."
The halt to labor import takes effect today. No applications from Indonesians for work permits and visas will be approved until it is lifted.
The representative offices in Taiwan of Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines provide educational facilities, employment dispute mediation services and social events for the large numbers of their nationals who work in Taiwan.
The Indonesian Economic and Trade Office in Taipei, Indonesia's representative office in Taiwan, however, has no representative handling workers' affairs and Kuo said yesterday that the office "has done nothing to solve the problem."
When the cessation of labor imports will be lifted is not clear, and will depend on how the Indonesian government handles the problem, Kuo said.
The CLA had tried to arrange talks with the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office until Tuesday, and had said that no embargo would be announced unless such negotiations failed. It changed its mind yesterday.
The Indonesian Office was not available to comment following the announcement.
Kuo said the CLA had been considering the move "for the past few months."
According to the statistics from the council, among the 5,089 foreign workers ever to have absconded from Taiwan, 2,804 of them were Indonesians who did so last year. The figure represents 3.2 percent of the total of Indonesian workers in Taiwan, while the abscondence rate among Filipino workers was 1.22 percent last year. Among the 693 foreign workers who absconded in May, 397 were from Indonesia, while 134 were from Vietnam, 76 from the Philippines, and 86 from Thailand.
At the end of June, there were 96,971 Indonesian workers in Taiwan, of whom 79,632 were caregivers. Kuo said yesterday, "The particularly hard work required of caregivers is believed to be one of the reasons for the high rate."
The CLA also says, however, that the Indonesian government's attempts to enforce a requirement that Taiwanese brokerage agencies keep NT$3,000 per month from each Indonesian employee's salary during their first year in Taiwan to prevent them from absconding conflicts with the CLA's own policy and is another reason for the embargo.
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