Wed, Sep 16, 2015 page3

• Foreign workers rally over departure laws

  • By Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter
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  Rights advocates and foreign workers yesterday gathered outside the gates of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei to protest reports that rules requiring foreign workers to leave the nation every three years would be removed from a proposed amendment to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).

  Requirements that foreign workers leave the nation every three years profit labor agencies at the expense of their employees, Taiwan International Workers’ Association members said.

  “For workers, the requirements are mainly a means to force them to pay another set of agency fees,” association member Betty Chen (陳容柔) said, adding that the requirement is discriminatory because it only applies to blue-collar workers.

  

  Workers’ rights advocates protest outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday over rules requiring foreign workers to leave the nation every three years.

  Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times

  Association member Wu Ching-ju (吳靜如) said that while in theory employers could apply to re-employ caregivers, complicated paperwork and requirements ensure that the vast majority of workers are forced to rely on agencies, which charge expensive placement fees.

  Filipino Maan Galleca said that workers are forced to borrow money to pay placement fees, with her own fee being 97,700 pesos (US$2,090), which is equivalent to three years of her expendable income in the Philippines.

  The Ministry of Labor raised the minimum wage for blue-collar foreign workers to NT$17,000 from this month.

  Protesters dismissed claims that requiring caregivers to leave the nation every three years were necessary to protect their rights to visit family in their home nation.

  “All foreign workers are included in the rules guaranteeing leave, so if a family issue arises, they have seven days every year that they can use,” Wu said, adding that foreign caregiver contracts also guarantee them seven days of leave every year.

  “If foreign workers are not able to return home after requirements to leave the nation every three years are dropped, it would be because the government has not properly upheld existing protections,” Wu said.

  She called on the government to take responsibility for the initial placement of workers, to simplify the application process and rules governing workers switching employers, comparing the current system to “indentured servitude.”

  “Foreign workers are constrained by the fact that they can not switch employers and even more tied up by the fact that they can not take leave, so if they run into problems, they are often extremely isolated, especially foreign caregivers,” Wu said.

  She said that because some families who employ foreign caregivers are unwilling to agree to leave because of their heavy reliance on a single caregiver, the government should reform the system to allow multiple caregivers to work in shifts for a single family.

  Wu said she supports proposals to drop restrictions on the total number of years a foreign laborer can remain in the nation, adding that visa extensions should be automatic rather than based on evaluations to help protect workers from being penalized for joining protests.
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