The Council of Labor Affairs will increase penalties for illegal labor brokering as part of efforts to resolve the problem of runaway foreign workers, an official said yesterday.
At present, the maximum fine for the brokering of illegal workers is NT$500,000 (US$16,600) and repeat offenders within a five-year period can be sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of up to NT$600,000.
The council is planning to raise the maximum fine for a first offense to NT$1.5 million, and for repeat offenses a maximum prison term of five years is planned and a fine of up to NT$2.4 million, said Tsai Meng-liang (蔡孟良), chief of the foreign workers management division at the council’s Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training.
REGISTERED BROKERS
As for measures targeting the more than 1,000 registered labor brokers in the country, brokers would have their license revoked if it is found that there is an excessively high runaway rate among the workers they bring in, Tsai said.
He said the government believed brokers must take major responsibility for the problem of runaways because they supply the foreign workers.
The official was responding to a recent crackdown by the National Immigration Agency on a ring providing false identification documents that targeted runaway foreign workers.
RUNAWAYS
Council statistics show there are about 34,000 runaway foreign workers in Taiwan.
The issue has drawn much attention in the wake of the Sept. 6 deaths of six runaway foreign workers, who were illegally employed at a construction site on the No. 6 Freeway.
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
RSS