An amendment to allow foreign workers to remain in Taiwan without having to leave the nation when they have worked for three years passed its first reading at the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee yesterday.
The amendment to the Employment Service Act (就業服務法) would allow foreign workers who have lived in Taiwan for more than three years to be rehired directly without having to first leave the nation, a move designed to benefit both employers and foreign workers.
Workforce Development Agency Director-General Huang Chiu-kuei (黃秋桂) said the revision marks a noticeable improvement in the nation’s history of human rights protection.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
In the future, all types of foreign workers can extend their work years in Taiwan without having to leave the nation and apply for a new visa, Huang said.
The new measure would not only save foreign workers time and money — with labor brokers demanding fees in their home countries — but would also help Taiwanese employers avoid periods without their employees, along with training costs, she said.
There are 595,695 foreign workers in Taiwan, about 240,000 of whom are from Indonesia, according to Ministry of Labor statistics.
Before the revision clears the Legislative Yuan, about 14,000 of them would need to leave each year to be able to continue working here, the ministry said.
In such cases, some foreign workers need to pay brokerage or other fees to re-enter the nation, the ministry said.
In some countries, brokerage fees pose a serious burden for people seeking to work overseas, it said, adding that the fee is about NT$50,000 to NT$54,000 in Indonesia, while the figure could reach as high as NT$120,000 for Vietnamese workers.
The amendments were proposed by Democratic Progressive Party legislators Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) and Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴).
Meanwhile, during a legislative meeting yesterday, a tearful Lin read her “no suicide statement,” saying that she has been threatened by some labor agencies for pushing through regulations in favor of foreign workers.
Lin said that she has received threats from labor agencies.
“Wu and I are struggling to protect the rights of foreign workers, but since we are blocking some people from making more money, some labor agencies are spreading false rumors on the Internet and have even threatened my life,” Lin said. “I therefore would like to announce that I will not commit suicide over anything, and, if I die [in what seems like an] accident, I ask that the police launch an investigation.”
Lin said that, despite being threatened, she would not give up defending foreign workers’ rights against exploitation by labor agencies, adding that she would take legal action against those who spread false rumors about her.
“It is a shame that Taiwan has often been listed as a nation with human trafficking problems by international human rights groups because of how we mistreat foreign workers,” Lin said. “We must make a change.”
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
RSS