More work is needed to reduce the role of labor brokers in employing foreign laborers, including revising requirements that such workers leave the nation every three years, Minister of Labor Chen Hsiung-wen (陳雄文) told lawmakers yesterday.
In response to questions at the Legislative Yuan on proposed revisions to the Employment Service Act (就業服務法), Chen said that the deletion of provisions requiring foreign blue-collar workers to leave the nation every three years was the consistent position of the ministry, dismissing claims that employers would not allow workers time off if provisions were removed.
“We will require rules to be put in the contracts — which we approve — and that should be enough to address those concerns,” he said.
He blamed the failure of previous legislative attempts to amend the act to opposition from labor brokers.
He also said that the ministry’s short-term goal is to increase the number of directly employed foreign laborers from 18 percent now to between 20 and 30 percent.
“The Nationality Act (國籍法) mandated that if foreigners lived in our nation for more than five years, they would be eligible to apply for permanent residency, so the rule that foreign laborers leave the country every three years was intended to guarantee that they would not have five years of continuous residency,” he said in response to a question from New Power Party Legislator Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸).
Hung said that issue was no longer a concern following the passage of amendments to the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法) in 2007.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴), who sponsored the proposed revisions, said that foreign laborers are forced to spend between NT$75,000 and NT$180,000 in agency fees, putting most of them in debt before they arrive in Taiwan and eating up most of their first-year wages.
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