The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said on Friday that regulations governing the introduction of foreign laborers in free trade zones should be eased for one of the government’s 12 major infrastructure projects.
The ministry official was referring to the Taoyuan International Air City, which will include a free trade zone.
The ministry said it hoped that existing labor regulations in local free trade zones — such as a minimum wage, requirements that foreign laborers be limited to 40 percent of a company’s workforce and that Aborigines make up at least 5 percent — would not apply to the airport zone.
The official said the ministry had sent two versions of a draft statute governing the development of Taoyuan International Airport Park to the Executive Yuan for approval.
The first follows existing regulations and would enforce the cap on foreign workers and the payment of a minimum wage. The second said that in special cases companies could apply for exemptions and that the ministry and the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) would jointly screen their applications.
The ministry also hopes to lower the minimum ratio of Aboriginal employees from 5 percent to 1 percent, the official said.
However, the official said: “No company in a free trade zone has a workforce where 40 percent of its workers are foreign laborers. It is not certain which sectors in Air City would need a lot of foreign laborers.”
He said the ministry put forth the second version because it did not want potential investors to have any misgivings about hiring foreign laborers.
Some sectors have in recent years asked the CLA to exempt them from paying foreign laborers a minimum wage, but the requests have been rejected.
The CLA reaffirmed its stance yesterday that any move to bring in more foreign laborers must not undermine job opportunities for Taiwanese.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS