Taiwan News

CLA Urged to Help Curb Migrant Worker Abuse
Date Posted: 10/19/2006

Migrant worker advocates urged the government on Tuesday to abolish the use of private brokers in recruiting foreign laborers and implement a revised system in its place.

The Hope Workers' Center, the Taiwan International Workers' Association and the Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Brides Office all stressed at a press conference that the private brokerage system currently used to match migrant laborers with local employers was the main source of exploitation against the workers, and needed to be changed.

The Council of Labor Affairs (勞委會) has tried to limit the expenses migrants pay to their brokers, in part by encouraging labor middlemen in the workers' home countries not to charge a brokerage fee of more than NT$15,840, the minimum wage in Taiwan.

The council has also stipulated that domestic brokers are not allowed to collect brokerage fees from migrant workers during their stay in Taiwan except for a monthly "service fee" of NT$1,500 to NT$1,800.

The Hope Workers' Center and Vietnamese workers group emphasized, however, that these constraints have done little to ease the burden on foreign workers employed here.

Representatives of the center said that local brokers often ask their counterparts in foreign countries to share the brokerage fees, with the actual amount paid by migrants being three to 20 times the minimum wage.

Statistics provided by the two labor rights groups showed that the actual brokerage fee paid by the average Vietnamese worker was US$7,500 to US$8,500 while Thai, Indonesian and Filipino workers were asked to pay NT$110,000 to NT$150,000, NT$130,000 to NT$150,000 and NT$65,000 to NT$85,000 respectively.

Moreover, in addition to the legal monthly service fee, some domestic brokers create other pretexts to collect money from migrant workers, the labor advocates indicated.

Kuomintang lawmaker Joanna Lei, who convened the press conference, argued that the existing brokerage system treated migrant workers as "commodities."

She said the gravity of the problem and the government's lack of focus in dealing with it was reflected in the latest U.S. Department of State "Trafficking in Persons Report," which relegated Taiwan to the "Tier 2 Watch List" for ignoring the interests and rights of migrant workers.

Lei urged the Council of Labor Affairs to give greater priority to dealing with migrant laborer issues and strengthen policies in this area.

One suggestion made by Lei and the labor rights groups was for the government to take over the brokering function because private brokers and onerous broker fees were the main sources of migrant worker abuse.

A Vietnamese caregiver nicknamed "Ah-ming" supported the contention that the middlemen were the ones making workers' lives difficult.

She claimed that her Taiwanese broker "sold" her to illegal employers six times, where she did hard jobs but received a total salary of only NT$2,500 per month.

The Hope Workers' Center further urged that steps be taken to protect migrant workers' interests and their human rights on the job, citing the case of two Filipino workers at a paper factory in Taoyuan who died of exhaustion in June and July respectively after they were forced to work 16-hour days and had requests to take a break denied.

The groups called on the government to allow foreign workers to switch employers freely and give them the right to organize a labor union to protect their own interests.

They also suggested that not only migrant workers but also foreign caregivers should be protected by domestic laws that would give them the right to time off and empower them to refuse to work excessively long hours.

Source:Taiwan News(2006/10/18 12:05:10)
http://english.www.gov.tw/TaiwanHeadlines/index.jsp?categid=10&recordid=100727