Job Discussion Forums

[Wonder]

Just wondering in anyone else read the article on page 2 in Friday's issue of the Taipei Times, with the headline: "Foreigners speak out on lack of rights..."

I read this article and can't stop thinking about it.

There were two stories about laborers from China and Vietnam. It's the second story that makes me wince.

Apparently, a young Vietnamese woman in her 20s had to pay US$5,000 in brokerage fees just for the right to work in Taiwan. Upon arrival, she was promised pay of only 15,000 NT$ a month. According to the article, that pay was later reduced to only 7,000 NT$ per month with "various deductions."

She had to work 16 hours each day to earn NT$7,000 per month.

To make a long story short, she worked for 10 months at this job until she broke down from exhaustion. It was as a laborer at an electronic spare parts factory. Sounds nice, doesn't it?

Finally she packed it in, only to find work at another factory where she lost four fingers operating heavy machinery which she was not trained to use. Then the boss of this factory ordered her back to work after only two days in the hospital.

She finally lost her whole hand and had to be rescued by a reverend from the Vietnamese Migrant Workers Office. It sounds as though this woman would have been worked to death had it not been for the intervention on the part of her countrymen.

The other story wasn't much better.

To put this in perspective, she would have to work almost 10 months to earn what some of us make in five weeks. And we didn't have to pay a dime to any "brokers". She had to take out a high interest loan to pay these sharks.

How can this be going on in a supposed First World nation? It makes me sick to my stomach. I know it was my choice to come to Taiwan. But I'm not so sure how long I'll be staying after hearing about this.

We expect to be treated fairly and professionally as teachers, which is not an unreal expectation. We also expect to be paid some kind of equivalent to what we would be earning in our own country, and rightly so.

I hope I don't appear naive, but hearing about the expoitation and abuse of cheap labor really makes me stop and think if I want to buy anything made in this country, much less work here as an ESL teacher. I could be teaching the child of a factory foreman who is paid to break the back of young, third world workers who have mistakenly assumed they would be treated fairly in Taiwan, and who have tried to escape the wretched conditions in their own countries, only to be abused yet again here in this country.

I know, I know. This goes on all the time in almost all forms of work in Asian countries, Korea included and it's normally Filipinos who are paying the high price of trying to escape squalor.

I know the average monthly incomes for Filipinos and Vietnamese in their own countries is between $100 and $200 US. But Taiwan is supposed to be a "developed" nation.

It seems as though they have a long way to go.

[karenannehope]

Wonder, I understand what you're feeling. Sometimes its hard to avoid thinking about one's own level of complicity when one participates in a society that condones human rights abuses like the situations you have mentioned.

However, in any country and on any life-path, it is difficult to make ethical choices and its impossible to avoid compromise to some extent. You can only do the best that you can....

[Xenophobe]

It hasn't ben that long that a man was paid more than a woman for doing the same exact job in Canada and the US. Mind you nowadays, that same man may not be eligible to apply for these jobs due to "equity"employment practices imposed. The sad thing is, that for as poorly as Filipinos are treated in Taiwan, most are better off in Taiwan than they are in their own country.

[Wonder]

Hey Xenophobe, you are probably right. Most Filipinos are better off anywhere than their own country regarding employment. However, they would remain in their own country if they could, and send scads of money back home at an alarming rate. It makes up a high percentage of their annaul GDP.

I should have followed up on this post but haven't had time. I certainly don't want to sound preachy about this topic. But I was sincerely outraged by the article. I have since been informed that migrant workers in the U.S. and Canada aren't treated much better. Again, my naivete was showing.

And hey, I'm not an intense person and certainly not a do-gooder to any stretch. I was, however, surprised. Another alarming fact I just learned is the basic hourly rate here in Taiwan is 66NT$ per hour, some are earning less. There have been some small demonstrations recently by uni-grads in Taiwan because that ain't gonna put rice on the table and gas in the scooter!

Anyway, judging by the amount of people who have viewed this topic (and the amount of people who view this web-site compared to forumosa), I know people are interested but probably have no idea how they could help or if there is anything we could possibly do about it anyway. We're all wrapped up in our own lives trying to make it as good as possible, me included.

I do, however, think there should be more articles like this in the local newspapers. We all know what kind of interest is generated when one of our own is mistreated in some way. So there you have it.

Cheers

[Aristotle]

What you can do is form a union. Once one is formed in a legal and open fashion then others will follow without much resistance. It is the first that will be the most difficult but will also bring about the most in the way of progressive change.
The next step towards post industrialization is an open and functional organized labor movement. Without that, Taiwan is detsined for the trash heap.
The reason that Taiwan brings in so many foreign laborers is so that management can continue to resist efficiency and transparency in exchange for inefficiency and corruption.
We as citizens of progressive states are in a much stronger position to form a union than those being exploited by local industry. We have a lot less to lose and it would be a tremendous benefit to the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers and the local population as a whole.
Migrant workers in the US and Canada are badly exploited as are migrant workers all over the world. What makes Taiwan different is the fact that the migrant laborers being badly mistreated and enslaved on Taiwan are legally sanctioned. Invited by the government of the Republic of China to be here with the intention of explotation.
Laws to protect foreign workers are only there to ward off criticism from other places, not to be effective legal mechanisms of protection.
If you want to make a change then you must have the courage and determination to do that. Every little bit helps so do your bit.
Welcome to Taiwan