A riot by Thai workers on Sunday night in Kaohsiung wasn't a prison riot, but there were many common features. Although the workers are not prisoners, their freedom is restricted to almost the same degree and the conditions they live in are not dissimilar to a jail. In a nation that prides itself as being built on human rights, the riot that swept through the community of construction workers is a shameful incident.
On Sunday night, hundreds of the 1,700 Thai workers living in dormitories provided by the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Company (KRTC) in the Peichichang (
After more than 15 hours of negotiations between representatives of the government, the KRTC and the workers, an agreement was reached and the incident can be said to have been brought to a conclusion.
The arson, stone-throwing and smashing of cars perpetrated by the workers are serious crimes and the government should ensure that there is no repetition of such violations of public safety laws. But the Thai workers' demands were not unreasonable.
Their requests to be allowed to use mobile phones, that a ban on alcohol be lifted, that their NT$5,000 in pocket money be paid in cash rather than tokens, that a satellite dish be installed so they can watch Thai television programs, that overtime be paid according to work done -- and that a limit on paid overtime of 46 hours be lifted -- and that Thais be employed as dormitory management staff, are perfectly reasonable.
In Taiwan today, people are unwilling to accept labor-intensive, high-risk, dirty or low-wage work. The government has no option but to import foreign workers to relieve the labor shortage in these sectors. Unfortunately, regulations, society and employers' attitudes have not been adjusted to fit the new situation. Outdated laws, poor management, a slave-owner mentality and cultural differences have caused friction between employers and employees, sowing the seeds of unrest.
The KRTC has used military-style discipline to simplify the management of thousands of Thai workers, allotting them poor housing and restricting their freedom of movement. This is unnecessary. Although employers can impose certain regulations during working hours, once work is over it's a different matter. It is unnecessary to prevent workers from using mobile phones, smoking or watching television after work, or to regulate how they spend their money.
Last Friday, a letter appeared on this page detailing the ill-treatment given a Filipina maid working for a Taiwanese family. The letter created quite a stir, and even the Manila Economic and Cultural Office, the Philippines' representative office in Taiwan, contacted us to enquire if they could offer assistance.
There are undoubtedly many similar cases in Taiwan. Such infringements of the basic human rights of foreign workers cannot be condoned. Government intervention and the establishment of a channel for victims to air their grievances, is necessary.
In the past it was Taiwanese laborers that went abroad to find employment. Now we import foreign labor. These workers have been indispensable to the nation's economic development and we could not do without them, in terms of both their contribution to the economy as well as our society.
Employers need to change the way they treat these workers: There should be mutual respect between employer and employee. Harmonious relations start with the observance of humanity.
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The National Development Council (NDC) on Wednesday last week launched a six-month “digital nomad visitor visa” program, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Monday. The new visa is for foreign nationals from Taiwan’s list of visa-exempt countries who meet financial eligibility criteria and provide proof of work contracts, but it is not clear how it differs from other visitor visas for nationals of those countries, CNA wrote. The NDC last year said that it hoped to attract 100,000 “digital nomads,” according to the report. Interest in working remotely from abroad has significantly increased in recent years following improvements in
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