Three issues related to migrants’ rights being voted on in a mock referendum garnered more than 90 percent support, mostly from migrant workers, but the results were not received positively by Ministry of Labor officials.
Of the 2,447 people who participated in the vote, 2,424 demanded legal protections for live-in caregivers and 2,413 supported the right of migrant workers to switch employers without restriction, said the Taiwan International Workers’ Association (TIWA), which staged the mock referendum.
The third issue on the ballot was about the private employment brokerage system, which has been criticized for charging migrant workers high fees.
An appeal for the system to be abolished and replaced by one mediated by the governments of Taiwan and the migrants’ source nation received 2,415 votes, the TIWA said.
The vote was not restricted to migrant workers, with 338 ballots cast by Taiwanese, it said.
A Taiwanese surnamed Lu (呂) said she supported legal protections for domestic caregivers because that would mean a guaranteed level of benefits from their employers, making them more willing to continue in their jobs.
Lu was among the few voters who cast ballots against the two other measures.
She was against lifting the ban on migrant workers changing employers without authorization because that would leave open the possibility that her grandmother’s caregiver, whom the family has put their trust in, could leave unexpectedly.
She also said the existing brokerage system needed to remain in place because having a broker take care of all of the paperwork needed to apply for a live-in caregiver was much easier than filing in the application herself.
Sumiyati, a migrant worker, supported all three measures and said that migrants who work as domestic caregivers do not have legal protections on working hours, the minimum wage and mandatory days off, and that the fees charged by brokers have forced them into debt.
Under Article 59 of the Employment Service Act (就業服務法), migrant workers are not allowed to change employers except under special circumstances, such as being employed in a job that was not what they were originally contracted to do.
Workforce Development Agency Cross-Border Workforce Management official Hsueh Chien-chung (薛鑑忠) said the article already allows for the possibility of changing employers, but Sumiyati said that in practice it is difficult for migrant workers to obtain approval to make such a change.
Migrant workers are required to present evidence to prove the unreasonable working conditions that do not fulfill their contract to apply for a transfer of employment, Sumiyati said.
Collecting the necessary evidence without help from the broker, who always side with employers against workers in such cases, is not an easy task, Sumiyati added.
On the call to end the private brokerage system, Hsueh said the government introduced “direct hiring services” in 2008 to help employers bypass brokers and about 25,000 migrant workers’ applications are processed through the system each year.
Noting that there are more than 600,000 migrant workers employed in 300,000 workplaces, Hsueh said the existence of employment brokers is simply “a matter of supply and demand.”
As long as there is strong demand for migrant workers, employment brokers would not shut down just because the government has ordered them to; they would go underground, making their supervision more difficult, he said.
On the call for live-in caregivers to be covered by the labor laws, Department of Labor Standards and Equal Employment Director-General Hsieh Chien-chien (謝倩蒨) said “it is not feasible” due to the difficulty law enforcement authorities would have in monitoring working conditions.
The mock referendum runs until Dec. 10.
The TIWA said the final results would be announced on Dec. 17 at a rally on migrant workers’ rights.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS