The Miaoli County Government had no authorization to impose a lockdown on foreign migrant workers in June last year, the Control Yuan said yesterday.
Control Yuan members Wang Yu-ling (王幼玲) and Wang Mei-yu (王美玉) said that county government officials should receive reprimands and other punishments.
The members wrote in a report on the case that there was also misconduct and negligence at the Ministry of Labor and the National Immigration Agency.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
Miaoli County Commissioner Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on June 7 last year imposed a lockdown affecting migrant workers and foreign care workers in the county, most of whom are from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand or the Philippines.
The county at the time was facing an outbreak of COVID-19 among migrant workers at factories at Jhunan Science Park (竹南科學園區), including clusters linked to King Yuan Electronics Co and Greatek Electronics Inc.
Foreign workers living in dormitories were ordered to remain in their rooms when not at work, while the companies were told to provide buses to take them to and from work, and to assign people to buy supplies for dormitory residents, Chinese-language media reported at the time.
Labor rights advocates said that the policies were discriminatory, as the orders applied only to migrant workers and not to Taiwanese.
Hsu also ordered Miaoli County police and labor agencies to enhance street patrols to check apparent foreigners seen outside and fine them if they were found to be in breach of the rules of the lockdown, which ended on June 28 last year.
Wang Yu-ling said they began the investigation in August last year.
“The lockdown order by the Miaoli County Government was without legal basis,” she said. “It had no authority to impose such a ban against foreign workers.”
“It contravened the rights of the workers and was discriminatory,” she added.
The policy, which maligned migrant workers, received a lot of attention from foreign media, she said.
“Reports about the Miaoli County Government’s treatment of migrant workers were listed in Amnesty International’s annual human rights report, while the US Department of State and international media reports have criticized the treatment of migrant workers in Taiwan, tarnishing the nation’s image,” she said.
Wang Mei-yu said that the county government and the ministry contravened the rights migrant workers have to health and information.
The lockdowns subjected them to overcrowded conditions and a lack of adequate bathing facilities, she said.
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