The government would not accept the one-sided terms introduced by the Indonesian government aimed at compelling Taiwanese employers to shoulder the costs incurred by some migrant workers before they leave to work abroad, the Ministry of Labor said yesterday.
The Indonesian Economic and Trade Office to Taipei on Wednesday sent a letter to the ministry stating that as of Jan. 1, Taiwanese employers would be required to pay 11 types of fees for Indonesian workers before they depart for Taiwan, Minister of Labor Hsu Ming-chun (許銘春) said before a meeting at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
These include airline tickets, passport/visa fees and the costs incurred by labor brokerages in Indonesia for caregivers, domestic workers and fishers, she said.
However, the letter did not provide detailed information or clearly state how much employers would need to pay when the new terms come into force, Hsu said.
The Ministry of Labor would seek clarification, and remind Indonesia that under bilateral agreements, any changes to prior agreements need to be discussed by both countries, she said.
“If the Indonesian government implements the measures after only a unilateral notification, the Ministry of Labor would not accept it,” Hsu said.
Migrant workers and workers’ rights groups have long complained that employers do not help with any of the pre-employment costs incurred by such workers, but brokers are allowed to collect fees from them, so many workers go into debt to be able to cover the costs of obtaining a contract and visa to work overseas.
Last month the Taiwan International Worker-Employment Relations Harmony Development Association held a rally outside the Indonesian trade office.
The association, made up of many disabled people or family members of those who need care, said that they feared the cost of hiring caregivers would skyrocket if the new fees are implemented and they would not be able to afford to hire migrant caregivers.
The rally was to protest the demands made of Taiwanese employers by the Indonesian government, said Chen Shan-hsiu (陳善修), one of the demonstrators.
Protesters brandished banners and signs that read “Say NO to Indonesian Migrant Workers,” and chanted slogans calling for the Indonesian government to get out of Taiwan.
When asked by reporters who would fill the labor gap if Taiwan decided to stop importing Indonesian workers, Chen said that the government could turn to other Asian countries such as Nepal.
However, the protesters’ signs and slogans angered many in the Indonesian migrant community, with several leaders calling for caregivers and domestic workers to do only the work detailed in their contracts and refuse anything more than that.
Migrants have been urged to change their photographs on social media to an image of a Taiwanese woman breaking down in tears, with the slogan “Say no to work outside the job” as part of an effort to draw attention to the fact that many Indonesian workers are often required to do non-contract work by their employers.
For example, many caregivers are hired to take care of a single patient, but are often told they must do extra work such as cleaning houses, offices and vehicles, said Fajar, an Indonesian community leader affiliated with the Hsinchu Migrant-Immigrant Service Center and Taiwan International Workers Association.
Lennon Ying-dah Wong (汪英達), director of a service center and shelter for migrant workers under the Serve the People Association in Taoyuan, said that it would be extremely difficult to replace the more than 265,000 workers from Indonesia with people from other countries in just a few months.
He urged Taiwanese employers to try and understand the plight of migrant workers and that many have gone into debt because of large and exorbitant broker fees.
As of the end of September, there were 265,553 Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan, with 194,254 employed in social welfare work, such as caregivers and domestics.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS