Negotiations with Myanmar on introducing Burmese nationals as agricultural and industrial workers could be finalized within two months, the Ministry of Labor said yesterday.
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are also seen as potential new sources of labor to mitigate an expected shortfall of migrant workers, Workforce Development Agency director Liu Chia-chun (劉佳鈞) said.
Liu’s remarks came in response to Indonesia’s decision last month to gradually bar would-be household caretakers from working in Taiwan beginning in 2017.
The ministry plans to soon introduce between 100 and 200 Burmese workers “on a trial basis” as soon as late next month or early May, Liu said, adding that the ministry would consider increasing the number if initial attempts are successful.
While the initial plans would focus on manufacturing and agricultural workers, introducing household caregivers from Myanmar would also be a likely option in the near future, Liu said.
Liu said he was confident about introducing more Burmese workers, as Burmese share “a similar religion” and lifestyle with Taiwanese.
With a decade-long ban on Vietnamese household caretakers set to end soon, they are likely to fill the immediate gap left by Indonesian caretakers in the short run, ministry officials said.
Migrant rights activist Chen Su-hsiang (陳素香), the president of the Taiwan International Workers’ Association, asked whether the government was ready to accommodate migrant workers from Myanmar.
A large number of translators fluent in Burmese would be required, Chen said, as local labor departments around the nation only provide consulting services for migrant workers in four languages: Thai, Vietnamese, Tagalog and Bahasa Indonesia.
The ministry would also need to translate legal documents and labor regulations into Burmese to fully protect the rights of migrant workers from Myanmar, she added.
“I think the Ministry of Labor is exchanging blows with the Indonesian government,” Chen said.
“It is deeply regretful that when Indonesia demands that Indonesian caretakers be covered under minimum wage regulations, our ministry responds by searching for slave labor from another nation,” she added.
Last year, the Council of Agriculture proposed plans to introduce migrant workers to mitigate labor shortages in several agricultural sectors, including animal husbandry, livestock butchery, mushroom growing and the tea industry.
Foreign blue-collar workers are currently limited to employment as household caregivers and industrial and maritime workers, while plans to introduce foreign farm labor have drawn criticism from both labor amd farming rights groups.
Thousands of bottles of Sriracha have been returned or destroyed after the discovery of excessive sulfur dioxide, a bleaching agent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday. About 12,600 bottles totaling 9,991.8kg of the hot sauce imported from the US by Emporium Corp (河洛企業) were flagged at the border for containing illegal levels of sulfur dioxide, the FDA said in its regular border inspection announcement. Inspectors discovered 0.5g per kilogram of the common bleaching agent and preservative, higher than the 0.03g permitted, it said. As it is the first time within six months the product has been flagged, Sriracha products from
Two people were killed and another nine injured yesterday after being stung by hornets while hiking in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), with officials warning against wearing perfume or straying from trails during the autumn to avoid the potentially deadly creatures. Seven of the hikers only sustained minor injuries after being stung along the Bafenliao Hiking Trail (八分寮) and made their way down the mountain with a guide, the New Taipei City Fire Department said. Four of them — all male — sustained more serious injuries and were assisted when leaving the mountain, the department said. Two of them, a man surnamed
CHANGES: While NCCU opened the nation’s first co-ed dorm in Mucha, a recent survey showed that Taiwanese are in favor of abolishing gender segregation at high schools National Chengchi University (NCCU) has opened a co-ed dormitory, a first in Taiwan among state-funded Taiwan universities. The 22 duplexes are at the renovated “Huanan New Village,” in Taipei City’s Mucha (木柵) area, near the NCCU campus, a school official said yesterday. Twenty-two out of 37 group applications were selected in a lottery draw to select who would be chosen to live in the units, which can either be shared by up to eight students if the unit has four bedrooms, or up to 10 students if it is a five-bedroom unit, officials said. Completed in 1964 for campus staff housing,
The Ministry of the Interior has banned the use of mirror photos on national identification cards. Taiwanese nationals were required to prepare a front-facing “half-body” color photo or digital photo taken within the past two years when applying for an identification card for the first time, However, the ministry has since removed the term “half-body” in the updated regulation due to complaints regarding its vagueness. Published on Tuesday last week, the amended regulation on the formats and photos of national identification cards includes the stipulation that the length of the portrait from the top of the head to the bottom of the
RSS